Reinvention: A Midstack Roundup (Part 1)
9 essays about midlife reinvention from our community of writers
I’m thrilled to bring you the first group of essays from our first ever Midstack Roundup, this time on the theme of reinvention. We received so many submissions that I decided to publish the first group of essays today, and then the second group on Friday.
The purpose of our Midstack roundup is to highlight the writing of midlife writers in our Midstack community. The mission of Midstack is to help midlife women on Substack connect with each other and reach their goals together, and a roundup is a way of helping you find new readers and feel a sense of community.
How can you support the midlife writers in the roundup? Here are a few ideas:
Leave a comment on a post.
Restack the post.
Subscribe to a publication.
Shout out the essay or the writer in a note.
Stay tuned for more on Friday!
1. “The Closer We Get to the Ending, the More It Feels Like a Beginning” by in
About the essay: “We treat aging as a curse, when it's actually a gift. Sometimes we are so busy running from aging, we forget the abundance it can bring. To reinvent ourselves is to become, and to become is the point.”
About Leslie: “Beauty is everywhere and I am constantly distracted by it. I've made my living as a dancer, designer and writer just trying to leave some beauty behind. Here is where I leave some stories.”
2. “What If It’s Just a Phase?” by in
About the essay: “Midlife isn't the only time when libido can stutter. What if it's not a problem but an opportunity?”
About Anna: Anna Sansom is a multi-published erotic author and former sexual surrogate partner. She chronicles her living experiment of desire in queer midlife on Substack.
3. “Giving, Mending, Forgiving” by in Modern Strength
About the essay: “A meditation on learning old skills in midlife; mending a beloved blanket helps the author to move ahead and accept the imperfection of friendships.”
About Maura: “The short of it is I’m skeptical. And I like to pick things apart. I write about what compels me—I’m telling true stories about resilience, reflection, strength, and a hard look at what our culture says about older people, especially post-menopausal women.”
4. “Purpose, Lost and Found: Midlife Reinvention” by in
About the essay: “After stepping away from a career to raise three children, Natalie Silverstein found herself leading the PTA, but adrift in her own life. She was searching for purpose and meaning beyond her role as caregiver. She found a life raft in writing, creating a new identity and community to help her through her midlife reinvention.”
About Natalie: Natalie Silverstein is an author, speaker, nonprofit founder and passionate advocate for family and youth service. She is the author of two books, Simple Acts: The Busy Family’s Guide to Giving Back, and Simple Act: The Busy Teen’s Guide to Making a Difference. She is the host of the award-winning podcast, Simple Acts, Big Impact: Celebrating Teen Changemakers.
5. “The Push and Pull of a Midlife Pivot” by in
About the essay: “It's about my recent career pivot and how I'm navigating it. It also encourages readers to to reflect and see if they might need a pivot, too.”
About Vanessa: Vanessa is a writer, creative communications strategist, and joy-seeker. At Flourish & Flow, she's navigating midlife and menopause with creativity, connection, and joy.
6. What if: The freedom of imagination, the constraints of reality, and the value of philosophy by in
About the essay: “Are we ever really free to reinvent systems? My son's love of redesigning systems, sometimes from the ground up, got me thinking about the relationship between freedom and constraints. Rather than reflecting on mid-life, which I started out aiming for, I ended up speculating on what could happen if we reinvented American life starting from a premise of care and relationship.”
About Erica: “I'm a philosopher who's done jumping through formal academic hoops. In mid-career I'm enjoying teaching my classes and writing about philosophy in everyday life. Besides my partner and early-teen kids, I love playing the piano, five-petaled flowers, tidy spaces, macaroni & cheese, sunshine, and puns.”
7. “Staying on the Path: Dispatches from Somewhere in Mid-Writing Life” by Shannon Fara O’Neill in
About the essay: “Re-learning how to stay on the path as a writer after traumatic loss, and how my thoughts around what success and ambition look like have changed, gotten looser and more human. I also talk about craft and cultivating a community to keep writing.”
About Shannon: Shannon Fara O'Neill is a writer of fiction and non-fiction whose writing has appeared in Seventh Wave, Glimmer Train, Asian American Literary Review (AALR) and Mizna among others. Shannon earned her MFA in Fiction at Virginia Commonwealth University. She is currently writing a memoir about grief and loss, and trying to finish a crime novel and a linked story collection, based on her family's emigration from a small village in Lebanon to Dearborn, Michigan.
8. “Who Am I?” by in
About the essay: “As my husband's early-onset dementia progresses, I've had a think about who I am beyond my identity as his wife and co-person. What I've realized is that I'm remaking myself every day--every time I have to make a choice about how to respond to the situation we find ourselves in.”
About Pam: “In addition to writing The Middler on Substack, I'm a professor of English and the author of a novel, Little Lost River. I've also written a memoir about my experience of losing my husband to early onset dementia, The Ghost in You, for which I'm currently seeking a publisher.”
9. “Is the Curtain Closing?” by in
About the essay: “I'm about to retire. Is this the closing of an old chapter or the opening of a new one?”
About Rebecca: "I am a practicing obstetrician and gynecologist for the past thirty years, the last eleven of which I have owned my own small private practice in Napa, California. As I move toward the end of clinical practice I am searching for what I will do with my time. Family, travel and some type of consulting are all in my future.”
Thank you so much for including my essay. I feel so honored. I can wait to read everyone’s work and will be sharing across my community and platforms. 🦋
Thank you for making this happen, and including my essay. It’s great to have a curated selection to read.