women rediscovering themselves – Menopause & Malarkey

The Grief No One Warns You About

They tell you about grief.
They tell you about missing them.
About the quiet house.
About the first holidays, the anniversaries, the birthdays.
They tell you about tears.

What they don’t tell you is that your body remembers.
Not just their voice.
Not just their laugh.
Your body remembers what it felt like to be held.

And one day, maybe years later, you’ll be fine.
You’ll be functioning. Working. Laughing. Living your life.
And then something small will happen.

A moment of warmth. A memory. A conversation that feels easy.
And suddenly…
Your chest aches.
Your arms feel empty.
And you realize, with a clarity that almost knocks the wind out of you:

You don’t just miss him.
You miss being loved like that.
—
There’s a term for it, I’ve learned.
Attachment grief.
Touch starvation.

Clinical, tidy words for something that feels anything but.
Because there’s nothing clinical about waking up and wishing that someone would wrap his arms around you and say, “I’ve got you.”

There’s nothing tidy about your body remembering a place it used to rest… and not having anywhere for that feeling to go.
—
And here’s the part no one says out loud:
You can have a full life and still feel this ache.

You can have:
family who loves you
friends who show up
a life you’re grateful for
…and still miss the specific, irreplaceable intimacy of being chosen, held, known in that way.
Those things don’t compete.
They coexist.
—
Some days, it hits harder than others.

Some days it looks like tears.
Some days it looks like standing in your kitchen eating comfort food you haven’t made in years.
And some days… it looks like laughing, feeling warm for a moment — and then realizing that warmth has nowhere to land.
—
If you’ve felt this, I want you to hear me:
There is nothing wrong with you.

You are not broken.
You are not “stuck.”
You are not failing to move on.
Your body is remembering something real.
And real love doesn’t just disappear because time has passed.
—
I don’t have a neat ending for this.
No five steps to heal.
No “and then it got better.”
Some days it’s softer.
Some days it’s louder.
But I’m learning this:

A small tan Chihuahua sits on a couch beside a person wrapped in a soft, pastel blanket decorated with otters. A gray throw blanket is draped nearby, and a TV plays in the background, creating a cozy, quiet living room scene. — Sometimes you need a soft otter blanket … and a potato.

Feeling this ache doesn’t mean I’m losing.
It means I loved in a way that left a mark.
And maybe… just maybe…
that same part of me that feels this deeply
is also the part that could feel it again.

Even when hoping for that feels dangerous.
—
Until then…
Some days, we cry.
Some days, we cope with cookie dough ice cream.
And some days, we write about it
so someone else out there knows
they’re not the only one.

A reflection on late-blooming strength, rediscovered creativity, and the surprising places healing takes us.

There are moments in life when you look backward, then forward, then at the ground beneath your feet — and you realize you’re standing somewhere you never imagined, stronger than you expected.

This week, I caught myself feeling something I haven’t felt in a long time:
proud.
grounded.
steady.
And maybe most importantly… ready.

Ready for what?
Not men. Not dating apps. Not romance with a side of mystery shovels.
Ready for me.

Ready to keep writing.

Not the timid scribbles I used to produce in my 20s, but the bold, layered, soulful work that only comes with time — and life — and loss — and joy — and more experience than anyone ever asks for.

My creativity didn’t return quietly.
She came back at 55 with sass, steel, and an entire toolbox of stories she refused to keep inside my chest any longer.
She came with decades of women’s wisdom, mother-worry, step-parent diplomacy, blended family chaos, heartbreak, healing, gray hair earned the honest way, and a bachelor’s degree I fought my way toward at 47.

She came back mature, fierce, vulnerable, funny, gritty, and brilliant in ways my 25-year-old self couldn’t even dream of.

Ready to honor the life I’ve lived.

Two marriages that ended on purpose.
One that ended out of my control.
Daughters who grew into women.
Grandkids who became pure magic in human form.
Parents who left too soon.
A husband whose death changed the shape of my soul.
Jobs, losses, reinventions, dogs with big personalities and tiny bladders, and holding space for my kids when their own hearts broke.

Every bit of it taught me something.
Every bit of it honed me.
Every bit of it brought me here.

Ready to embrace the quiet triumphs.

The kind that don’t make noise.
The kind that happen in soft moments.
The kind that whisper, not shout:

“You made it.
And you’re okay.”

Sometimes that looks like writing a chapter that feels like truth.
Sometimes it looks like house-sitting with three snoring dogs.
Sometimes it looks like remembering you once slept in a room with someone you loved who’s no longer here — and choosing grace for your own heart when it feels unsettled.

And sometimes it looks like taking a bucket-list cruise to Alaska and unknowingly changing the entire trajectory of your life.

Ready for whatever comes next.

Not because I’m fearless.
Not because I’m finished grieving.
Not because life suddenly makes perfect sense.

But because I’m still standing —
and I’m standing taller than before.

Here’s to the late bloomers.
The reinvented.
The resilient.
The women who rise again and again, softer and stronger each time.

And here’s to the muse who came back with a vengeance.
I’ve missed her.
But she came home.
And she brought stories with her.

Tag: women rediscovering themselves

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