TOOLS, STORIES, and MORE
The Midlife Collective: Because One Expert Is Never Enough - With Kari Gran, Skin and Reinvention
…how to find answers, advocate for ourselves, and make choices that actually feel right for the women we are becoming.
Kari's story is a perfect example.
At 29, she was diagnosed with Graves' and Hashimoto's disease, autoimmune thyroid conditions that changed how she thought about her health, her body, and the products she was putting on her skin. A longtime beauty junkie, Kari had spent years loving products and buying into an industry that often promised more than it delivered. As she began reading ingredient labels and reconsidering what she wanted to put on her body, she started asking better questions.
What is actually good for me? What am I buying into? And why are we so determined to look younger rather than feel healthier?
Then came another midlife-sized question: What if I did something entirely different?
Back to School Blues
I feel empty.
No more butts in the bleachers. Too much food in the fridge. No one raiding the pantry at 10 p.m. No one asking where their favorite hoodie is when it is sitting directly in front of them. It is like Mary Poppins is showing up, talking, singing and dancing about how change is in the air, except I am not quite ready for the song.
My youngest is beginning her last year of college today. And yes, I know, quarter systems are weird. Somehow this means I have one more year of college parenting before I officially become an empty nester. I cried writing this. The pain is still lingering, and I can feel it from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. I love those kids so much.
And that is the thing about launching a child. It is not just about where they are going. It is about what their leaving stirs up in you.
The Third Turn: What Horses Can Teach Us About Midlife
There is something about watching the third turn of a horse race that feels a lot like midlife. The horses have already covered much of the track. They have found their rhythm, burned energy, experienced the jockey's direction, and navigated the competition around them. Then they enter the third turn, and suddenly the finish line is in sight.
The horses are heading into the home stretch. Every stride matters.
That feels a lot like midlife to me.
We are no longer at the beginning of the race. We have lived enough life to know some things. We know what drains us and what energizes us. We know which relationships nourish us and which leave us depleted. We know what we have survived. We know what we are capable of. We have made mistakes, recovered from disappointments, changed our minds, raised children, built careers, ended relationships, started over, cared for aging parents, and perhaps even lost ourselves along the way.
System Malfunction
Plug into a reliable wall outlet, hold the power button for 10 seconds, and let it charge for 15-20 minutes. Check the cable and adapter for damage. Listen for the startup chime. Look for the keyboard to light up.
This might sound like instructions for a computer, and in fact, it is.
One night, I did the ceremonious closing of my MacBook. I finished what I was doing, closed the lid, and went to bed. The next morning, I opened it and got nothing. No familiar glow, no startup chime, no keyboard lights. Just a black screen.
The Clock is Not Your Enemy
When we get stuck in an anti-aging mindset, we can begin to experience time as something chasing us rather than something we are living inside. The clock becomes an adversary. We start measuring ourselves against what we used to look like, what we used to be able to do, where we thought we would be by now, and what we believe we have lost. There is always another wrinkle to fight, another pound to lose, another treatment to try, another milestone we should have reached. Instead of inhabiting our lives, we can find ourselves managing our decline before we have even experienced it.
And that mindset is exhausting.
There is a difference between caring for yourself and fighting yourself. I can exercise because I want to be strong. I can eat well because I want to have energy. I can use skincare, color my hair, take medication, consider hormone therapy, or have a procedure because I enjoy how it makes me feel. None of those things have to mean that I am at war with my age. The question is not, "How do I keep myself from aging?" The question becomes, "How do I want to care for myself as I age?"
That feels like a very different conversation.
Jennifer’s Story
Jennifer sat across from me, tears filling her eyes.
"I don't recognize myself anymore," she said.
She wasn't talking about a major life crisis. She wasn't talking about losing herself in the way we often imagine. She was talking about looking in the mirror and not seeing the woman she remembered.
Her body had changed.
Her clothes fit differently. Her waistline had shifted. Her skin felt different. Her hair no longer behaved the way it once did. She noticed her eyelashes were thinner, her eyebrows less full, and her face looked older to her. She found herself searching for the younger version of herself, wondering where she had gone.
"I feel like I am disappearing," she told me.
But what Jennifer was experiencing was not disappearance.
It was transformation.
And yet, for many women, the physical changes of midlife bring an enormous amount of shame. The changes themselves are difficult enough, but the stories we attach to them can be even more painful.
For decades, women have received the message that beauty is tied to youth. We are surrounded by advertisements, media, and cultural expectations telling us that aging is something to fight. Wrinkles should be erased. Gray hair should be covered. A changing body should be corrected. A woman's value often feels connected to whether she still looks young, desirable, and effortless.
The message is clear:
Do not age.
Do not change.
Do not become different.