I asked him to repeat the question, mostly to buy myself time.

What new restaurants had I tried lately?

My colleague’s small talk hit me like an amnesiac asked what year it was.

“Any good spots I should try?” he prompted again, while I shuffled my papers. This was, after all, one of the few non‑work topics we’d ever bonded over.

But the Covid years had brought my Michelin‑rated tasting exploits to a full stop, along with the opportunity to talk about them in person. And when the world finally reopened, I just… didn’t want to step back into it. At least not into the urbane social life I’d curated so carefully before it all shut down.

I’d grown fond of staying in and cooking new recipes, far more than spending a small fortune on small portions at a buzzy new spot and then waxing sophisticated about it for days to anyone who’d listen.

“I, uh, actually don’t get out to eat that much anymore.”

My admission filled the conference room with a gaping silence I could crawl into.

It was the first time I’d had to answer for opting out of the downtown social scene. I felt caught off guard, even though he wasn’t asking me to justify anything. And my inability to name a new restaurant didn’t stop him from recommending one anyway, which, in hindsight, was probably his real motivation.

Throughout my 20s and 30s, I chased exclusive experiences, unaware that what I was really chasing was external validation. I exhausted myself with networking events, cultural outings, happy hours, weekend day drinking disguised as brunch, and of course, new restaurant openings — all to see and be seen. But none of it wove itself into a tapestry of fulfillment. Instead it all spooled down into more anxiety about what came next. Yesterday’s thing meant nothing tomorrow if I wasn’t part of it.

It took until nearly 40 and the strange gestational period that was Covid to realize the only validation I needed came from a single, elusive source: me. That the real work was granting myself sole authority over whether something was worthwhile, rather than putting it to a figurative (or literal) social media survey.

These days, my life looks very different. It’s several daily miles of nature walks with the dog. Strength workouts that challenge me. Cooking meals for the family or just me and my partner. Reading things that spark my excitement. Writing pieces like this for an audience far smaller than my former self would have deemed “worth the time.”

Covid made it easy to stop worrying about what everyone else was doing, because for once, no one could do anything with anyone. No one was one‑upping me with a trip to Ibiza or a private invite to a celebrity chef’s soft opening. We were all missing out together, which meant, for me, no fear of missing out at all.

And that relief grew on me.

Life never felt fuller than when my calendar was empty. I was sleeping in, exercising daily, crushing work, cooking healthy meals, not rushing anywhere, and spending more time on relationships that mattered. Where I once looked to tomorrow with anxiety about what came next, lockdown offered the steady comfort of knowing the day ahead held things I genuinely looked forward to, without needing to summon the energy to perform.

So when the world resumed normal social function, I lingered back. I stopped buying new clothes unless they matched my new lifestyle: comfort, quality, function. Not fashion. Not trends. Not the male gaze, nor even that of other women.

My social posts slowed to a trickle. I didn’t need to be ever‑present or the object of anyone’s envy or admiration. I shared only what I wanted to remember: special moments, meaningful trips, things I might never experience again.

I stopped driving all over creation; sometimes my car sat idle for days. I found contentment where I was, not where I was going. I chose to do things at home or walk to places in my neighborhood for errands and entertainment.

I declined most in‑person events and accepted plans with discernment. My guidance became:

• Do I actually want to do this?

• Will I still want to do it when it’s time to leave the house?

• If I couldn’t show or tell anyone about it, would I still go?

Missing out stops feeling like missing much at all when life ceases to be comparative. When we’re not worried about being perceived a certain way by the right people. When everything starts and ends with the question: Who am I when nobody’s looking?

I used to pity people who answered “What have you been up to?” with “Oh, you know… more of the same.” I thought, How boring — how sad — to have nothing worth mentioning! No trip, no event, no experience to prove you were living.

But once I embraced a slower lifestyle filled with the things that actually make me happy — even if they’re not part of the persona I’d curated for decades — it became obvious that “more of the same” is exactly what I want: More dog walks. More workouts. More cooking. More reading. More time to write for an audience of very few — and sometimes only one.

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It landed like a spark from grinding gears:

“Sometimes my husband and I joke we should get divorced just so we could split custody.”

My colleague’s offhanded comment eventually made its way into my first novel, August Recess, which fittingly centers on rediscovering one’s identity while navigating motherhood.

Her quip about breaking up a healthy marriage just for a parenting reprieve carried the deadpan, dark humor I’d come to appreciate from her cubicle. She was a hardworking professional and a fiercely devoted mother of three, their eldest living with a rare medical condition that caused relentless challenges. Emergency hospital visits were routine. Meanwhile, I’d sheepishly admit I’d had “a pretty nice weekend.”

It was impossible not to feel guilty. I had no biological kids of my own, and my partner’s three healthy sons lived with us only half the time. On our off‑weekends, we could literally roll around in bed all day if we wanted—far from the trenches my coworker lived in.

“I may have 50 percent custody, but I’m a dad 100 percent of the time,” my partner Jeffrey would remind me whenever a kid thing pulled him out of our blissful bubble on what wasn’t technically “his day.”

It was a commendable philosophy, but I knew it came tinged with guilt. Not guilt for being apart from his kids, but for enjoying the time without them. He struggled to hold the duality of loving his children while loving the version of himself that existed independent of them.

As someone without children of my own, I wondered how many parents — separated or still together — wrestle with that same duality. How many, given the luxury of downtime my coworker didn’t have, actually invest in their own child-free self-care?

It took a friend of ours, several years ahead in her own divorced‑parent journey, to reframe things for Jeffrey. Ironically known as a bit of a Helicopter Mom, she responded to his “50 percent custody, 100 percent dad” line with her own wry math:

“The silver lining of divorce is that you get back 50% of your time, 100% for yourself.”

Her words stuck. Until he heard it from another parent he respected, he hadn’t given himself permission to relish his newfound freedom. To see that being apart from his kids wasn’t shirking responsibility — it was an opportunity for an identity reboot.

Becoming a parent is life‑altering, but it doesn’t mean your personality, interests, ambitions, or growth journey evaporate. They just get squeezed. And yet many Gen X and Millennial parents are seized by an all‑consuming parenting style. Maybe it’s the 24/7 evaluative pressure of social media. Maybe it’s a generational overcorrection to latchkey childhoods. Maybe it’s toxic achievement culture, the disappearance of the “village,” or the socio‑economic anxieties of modern life.

Whatever the causes, evidence is mounting that today’s kids are some of the most overparented in history. Parents are making doctor’s appointments for their twenty‑somethings and even accompanying them on job interviews. These aren’t outliers; they’re increasingly common, as reported by major outlets across the board.

Overparenting is a fast track to burnout. I’ve heard it around the office — parents commiserating over problems that often stem from their own overinvolvement. (The years leading up to college applications alone is nightmare sauce.)

More alarming is that this martyrdom is backfiring. Dubbed “The Anxious Generation,” today’s kids are more stressed, more depressed, less independent, and less resilient. Overparenting isn’t the only cause, but it’s certainly one of them.

Kids benefit when they’re given latitude to make age‑appropriate decisions and mistakes. To figure things out. To feel ownership over their choices and accountability for the results. Micromanaging sends the opposite message: you can’t trust yourself; the world is too dangerous; let me handle it.

How can we expect them to thrive with that mentality?

Letting go in proper increments builds stronger kids and gives parents space to flourish in their own lives. And that, in turn, models something invaluable: parents as whole people who show up when it matters. Not as their kids’ social managers or school advocates or rite-of-passage oversteerers.

It’s been a few years now, and Jeffrey has come around to the idea that he doesn’t have to fit his previous full-custody efforts into a half-custody schedule. Nor that it would be additive if he did. The other night after dinner, two of his teens gave vague mention of the upcoming DECA competition they were enrolled in. The business and marketing organization falls squarely within their Type A dad’s wheelhouse. To my surprise, Jeffrey didn’t pepper them with leading questions or unsolicited advice. He listened attentively and offered encouragement. He let them share what they wanted.

After they left the table, I told him I was impressed by his restraint.

He smiled. “When they come home from the competition Saturday night, they’ll be tripping over each other to tell us what happened.”

I knew he was right. I nodded, a quiet smile forming. Then we headed out, hand‑in‑hand, for a sunset stroll.

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“‘I’m going to need to take this off,’ he whispered, unhooking my bra and pushing aside the straps.”

I typed out the line and closed my eyes, attempting to inhabit the scene.

I clacked away at the keyboard, then paused. Deleted a few words and tried again. With halting attempts, I choreographed the first open door scene of my debut romance novel. I ended the chapter:

“…We collapsed upon the bed, feet facing the headboard. He drew me into him, and I rested my head on his solid, reassuring chest, the swells of our breath moving together.”

Satisfied, I closed my laptop, eager to get to bed after a long day. While my main characters hung suspended in post-coital bliss, a comical split-screen bedtime routine was playing out in my house.

Donning an oversized sleep shirt and gag gift high socks that read “Just a Girl who Loves Hedgehogs,” I climbed into bed next to my partner, then reached over to my nightstand. I began the nightly sequence of taking my supplements with a glass of water, putting in my Invisalign, and setting up my sleep buds and eye mask. I burped audibly, regretting the extra helping of dinner. I felt like a balloon. And it all couldn’t feel further from the scene I’d just written.

As anyone knows who’s had a courtship evolve into a long-term relationship, this is the end state—the stage where we give up all pretense and return to our “real” selves, but this time with a partner who can be as equally vulnerable with us.

If your relationship has made it to this stage, congratulations. It is the untold happily ever after that we all, deep down, aspire to. But it often comes at a cost, and the currency is romance.

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The lingerie stops being an every time thing. Maybe it’s even an “oh, why bother? It’s uncomfortable and I’m just gonna take it off anyway” thing. Nibbling arugula instead of a real entrée to ensure a snatched waistline and a calm GI system before a night of passion is replaced by recklessly polishing off a lasagna and a pint of Haagen-Dazs with your beloved (who’s now also dressed in sweatpants), before clicking on “your show.”

Sex is no longer the objective of the evening. When your mind is on a problem at the office, or kids, or family, or anything else that shoves its way to the fore, sex becomes more of an evergreen task that gets pushed off to “tomorrow.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I feel bloated.”

“I haven’t even showered.”

The excuses multiply like bunnies. Every one of them a testament to how what once was the pinnacle of your night together has now become an afterthought.

You may ask yourself, “Is this the same person I would never skip styling my hair for or never even think of not shaving for? The person for whom I used to rearrange my entire day just to make sure we ran into each other?”

Yes. Yes, it is, and the only thing that has changed is the unfettered access to them.

When the relationship was new, spending the night together was the crescendo of a romantic evening, the thing you planned all week and anticipated all day. But you don’t have to be Paul Krugman to know the rules of supply and demand—unlimited access to anything will diminish its value in the market. And when “the market” consists of two people who share a bed every night, you can see how the comfortably married trope takes hold.

Plenty of recent articles from reputable health, wellness and medical institutions extol the benefits of “sleep divorce.” I really wish it were named something else, because “divorce” is such a loaded term that implies the finality of a fissure. The whole concept is to improve your wellbeing and relationship by sleeping separately for the part of the night when you’re unconscious anyway. It’s sleep divorce, not sex divorce.

Many couples who sleep apart agree it winds up increasing the amount, quality and motivation for intimacy together. You sleep better without someone next to you shifting, snoring, or getting up to pee multiple times. When you get better sleep, you’re less tired, your mood improves, and instead of wanting to suffocate the person who kept you up all night, you’re more inclined to miss the physical proximity to them. You start to look for opportunities to get close instead of taking it for granted.

And yet I think there’s still a stigma around sleeping separately that your relationship must be on the rocks, the same way that your friends’ random couple’s photoshoot on social media seems to foreshadow impending disaster. It’s everyone’s assumption that couples share a bed, not sleep like Ricky & Lucy of the 1950s. (And even those two managed to make Little Ricky from their twin beds.)

Sleeping apart used to be the norm for America’s wealthiest couples, especially in a time before king-sized mattresses. I’ve toured The Breakers and seen enough period pieces to know that if you were upper class and married, you kept your own bedchambers. After all, you were rich enough to have as many rooms as you wanted. To do otherwise would be aberrant to societal expectations.

If the richest couples were choosing to sleep separately, there had to be something appealing about it. In fact, it wasn’t until regular bathing, better hygiene, and more cultural acceptance around sleeping in the same bed evolved in the latter half of the 20^th century that it became the norm.

I’m not making the appeal to sleep apart because I believe it’s a cure-all for relationship troubles or a stale sex life. I’m not even saying it’s something couples need to try, if they’re perfectly well-rested and happy with how things are. Ninety-nine out of a hundred nights, my partner and I prefer to sleep next to one another. But those few nights we do sleep apart are an investment in the health of our relationship and our individual selves.

So if you want to try addition by subtraction (less contact that leads to more desire), try it.

If you want to wake up feeling more rested and less resentful of the body beside you, try it.

If you want private space to wear unflattering jammies and pass gas in bed without compromising your sexual mystique (or your partner’s), try it.

Because no couple should despair that the romance is lost forever. And the choice to sleep alone is not mutually exclusive of a happy relationship.

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I wasn’t sweating, but he was.

Terminal A at Reagan National — the airport that some OG DC residents can only bear to refer to as “National” — was outlandishly hot just a few days into the new year. It was a heating system mismatch to the break in frigid temps continuing to define a nascent 2026. Ice… and ICE… both plunging the U.S. into a chaotic freeze. But on January 7, I can attest, it was hot AF waiting to line up for my flight to New England.

“Do you mind if I sit here?” the man asked me, disarming smile, sandy hair well-kempt, as he fanned himself with the unbuttoned collar of his blue button-down shirt.

“Not at all,” I told him in high spirits, anticipating my trip and an on-time departure. He looked roughly my age, although I tend to miscalculate young strangers’ ages as “close to mine” the further into midlife I go.

Smalltalk about the weather — how cold it had been outside, how hot it was in the airport — naturally ensued, followed by that predictable, tenuous dance into personal territory that men do when their eyes decide they like what they see.

He was on his way to Ottawa to meet up with a woman who sounded like a recent online dating match; I was on my way to visit family. He never played hockey before; I told him he’d want to learn, if things were going to work out with this Canadian. He said if things went well that weekend, he was kind of hoping she’d relocate to Virginia. I wished him luck.

And so it went until my work at a DC news station came up.

“Oh, I listen to that one!” he said, eyes lighting up. Then named the wrong frequency on the dial. “Real conservative talk radio?” He beamed, mid-manifest.

My eyebrows raised. “Nope, that’s another one. We’re right down the middle, hard news reporting.”

“I’m a big conservative radio guy,” he doubled down, unphased.

I didn’t doubt it. Something about his appearance that I’ve yet to put my finger on gave off that aura of insidiously wholesome new-neoconservatism. The kind of guy who will self-censor the word “a-holes” in our conversation but vote for a party that allows a child in a bunny hat to get carted off to a detention center. A look that’s unassuming at first, then takes up space in the uncanny valley. A little horror story waiting to unfold.

I stopped my thoughts from running away with me. I smiled back. I knew nothing else about this guy besides a label, and in a few minutes, I’d be boarding a plane. Twenty years and five administrations in DC, you get used to meeting people of opposing ideologies. It didn’t have to be a big deal.

The year before, I’d had a similar encounter on the train. A young, attractive guy shared a café car table with me on a packed Northeast Regional trip home, while I tried to grind out a couple chapters of my first political romance. Conversation followed in dribs and drabs from over our laptops. I came to learn he wasn’t just a conservative — he was an appointee at Treasury. He was part of the Administration — “The Empire” — and he was…

…perfectly lovely to talk to? Despite his role, we didn’t talk politics, just as my own work writing a political novel didn’t come up. The closest the conversation came was when he expressed admiration for Press Sec’y Karoline Leavitt for what he saw as a tireless work ethic, even with the added challenge of being a new mom.

About a week later, I got a LinkedIn request and message from him asking if I’d like to meet up at the Round Robin bar, a historic spot steps from the White House with an iconic circular room where the term “Lobbyist” is fabled to have been coined.

The question of going out with him was out of the question. I’m in a committed relationship of several years, so the invite to a one-on-one drink downtown with no business purpose, while flattering, struck me as almost quaint. But it also kept me from having to answer the hard question so many single Americans may be asking themselves right now: With our country approaching what feels like a societal breaking point, is accepting a date across party lines simply a bridge too far? I know plenty of single women who, for his political party alone, would place him squarely in the dating category of “Absolutely Not.”

Cross-party dating is something that used to happen without much attention paid to it, especially among those of us who grew up watching the dynamically opposed political duo Jimmy Carville and Mary Matalin. By coincidence, I got to spend some time with the pair two summers ago, and they’re just as politically vocal and blissfully married as ever before. (In fact, Jimmy told me and my partner, at a time when it was still unthinkable, that Biden was going to drop out of the presidential race. We asked him when, then counted down the days to his prognostication. Wouldn’t you know, the old knobby-kneed Clinton-era Cajun was off by less than a week?)

Carville and Matalin were a curiosity back then for their ability to remain stalwart political adversaries across the table, then go home to share the same bed. I’d venture to guess that in today’s political climate, anyone even half as passionate about politics couldn’t sustain half as passionate a romance with someone of a differing ideology. Even the two of them, remarking upon their rock-solid marriage, were quick to acknowledge that the current political divide — and more accurately the rancorous state of societal discourse — is a far cry from what it used to be in the ‘90s, when we thought it had gotten so bad. How I yearn for the halcyon days of blue dress jokes, dimpled chads, and SNL spoofs about Newt Gingrich’s mom! We can’t even agree on the facts anymore or maintain civility; what cross-party couple could make it through dinner, let alone a relationship?

We’re living through a time when it feels hard enough to find a good match (or even a good date), while technology purports to make it easier than ever. It’s totally understandable that someone slogging through dating profiles or doing it the old-fashioned in-person way would want to eliminate obvious friction points before wasting their time on a terrible evening or so much as an obnoxious DM. Chances are your date will eventually let you down in some non-political way. Why wouldn’t you filter out someone for labeling themself with opposing views?

While that makes perfect sense on an individual level (we’re not here to save humanity one date at a time), the question nevertheless keeps needling me: With the majority of Gen Z saying they “swipe left” on people of opposing political views [All Things Considered, NPR, 22 May 2025], are self-imposed dating restrictions a microcosm of what’s happening in our country? Are we creating an echo chamber effect that artificially narrows not only our dating pool, but the chance to shape and be shaped by a wider spectrum of values as Americans? As humans?

Could filtering out potential dates by political labels make the lens we look at people through more convex, so that anyone on the opposite side appears increasingly distorted and monstrous? I’m not talking about the few in power who make and enact policies reminiscent of fascism; I mean regular people whose biggest political impact is simply how they vote and influence others around them.

I also realize people can become monsters because of this self-selective isolation and not even realize it, unfettered from a shared reality. We have seen this happen in history many times before, where otherwise “good” people have allowed monstrous things to happen because they were only surrounded by other gradually radicalized people. The proverbial frog in the boiling pot.

I’m not saying it’s our patriotic duty to get out there and date a person you may feel like smacking by the end of dinner. But is self-segregating by political parties before we even communicate with the other person only inflaming what feels like an irreparable rift in our societal fabric?

A garbled message over the Reagan PA system announced it was time to line up for my flight. I politely excused myself from the wholesome looking man of “about my age” who took care not to cuss but subscribed to the likes of the late Rush Limbaugh.

The last one to board, I saw him approach again as the flight attendant scanned my ticket. He looked as though he’d forgotten something.

“I figure it’s worth a shot.” He gave a wink and a shrug, handing me a folded index card. Then he left for his gate and, presumably, the Canadian of a likely future breakup.

I opened the note on the plane, already knowing. Scratched in pencil was his name, phone number, and a literal question mark… one I may not have the answer to, but perhaps collectively we should ask.

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I had unwittingly entered a Chinese finger trap from which there was no going back.

As a woman who joined the perimenopausal category at some point in time — one that I can’t pin down, because there’s no single, convenient “test” or conclusive threshold for this rite of passage — the realization had snuck up on me.

Then shock. Denial. Hormone replacement.

That last one is a bit misleading, in my case, though it’s a common sequitur for women my age and older. I never actually went off hormones since starting birth control in my teens. That makes determining the point of entry to perimenopause (short of knowing roughly when my mother and sisters started) pretty much impossible.

I never went off birth control, because I am one of an increasing number of electively childless women (not including the three I inherited from my partner a few years ago). There was never a time I actually wanted to get pregnant. That is an essay unto itself, as is the unsettling surge of retrograde rhetoric on the subject, but I will veer away from that tempting digression.

When you don’t have another life-altering milestone like birthing and rearing children to bridge the divide between your fertile 20s and “geriatric pregnancy” 30s into solid middle-age, you kind of forget that The Change is even coming for you. Focused on your career, your relationships, your pastimes turned passions, your personal wellness and fitness journey… it’s easy to forget you’re no longer 25. Then you realize one day over office coffee banter that the age gap between you and the colleague you were vibing with is a full generation wide. She smiles politely at your well-timed SATC reference (the original, not the reboot), but clearly has no idea where it comes from.

Beyond lightbulb moments like these, my view of myself at 40 hadn’t changed drastically from the one I held at 25, notwithstanding a couple divergent life choices and the growth in earnings and disposable income I happily didn’t have to spend on diapers, daycare, hungry mouths, or a 529 plan. Life was still business as usual and so was taking my birth control pill like clockwork every night since Y2K.

I got so used to being on the pill that, even with the reassurance of my dwindling egg supply and (more reliable still) my partner’s vasectomy, I was unwilling to stop taking it. Sure, an unwanted pregnancy was no longer a concern, but what tide of unpredictable hormones would flood my body and wreak havoc if I stopped?

I’d seen women come off the pill to either attempt conception or embrace “nature’s way,” only to suffer acne breakouts, weight gain, worsening periods, breast volume loss, and mood swings, among other consequences. If I went off the pill, especially at this hormonally unpredictable stage, what unregulated person could be lurking inside? I’d never even met my post-pubescent self who wasn’t on hormones. Just the thought of it evoked dualistic horror scenes from Jordan Peele’s thriller, Us.

No, no thank you. I’m not going to subject myself to even the chance of any of the above happening. I will gladly stay the course of delicately balanced estrogen and progesterone until my doctor insists it’s time to give up the ghost. Not that this will delay the inevitable; menopause will still overtake me and my ovaries on schedule, and I’ll be forced to trade one regimen of hormones for another (praise be to HRT).

But what became evident to me is how the vestiges of evolution that still tug at modern society deprioritize women past their child-bearing years. Our own immune system starts giving up on us, one of the many known drawbacks of falling estrogen levels. If run-of-the-mill hot flashes, sleep disruptions, brain fog, weight gain, joint pain, hair loss, and other ailments aren’t unpleasant enough, we also suffer an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, urinary issues, and bone density and muscle loss.

Fortunately, as a society, we’ve reached an inflection point when women are more vocal about this underfunded and poorly researched change of life that nearly half the population undergoes. Prominent, influential women who continue to shape the world are sharing personal experiences and insights about perimenopause and menopause. This group includes more than niche thought leaders and academics, but forces of nature themselves like Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama. Even several celebrities who hinged their heyday careers on being feminine and traditionally attractive are telling regular women about their own journey through this shift and how they made it to the other side, happier than before.

These voices are encouraging for many reasons. For me, it’s the affirmation that one’s “womanness” needn’t end as abruptly as most acting careers do, once you hit a certain age. You don’t just turn into an androgynous old lady with chin hair, orthotics, and a difficult jar to open when you can’t make babies anymore. You can still be feminine, you can still be able-bodied, and you can still be attractive — not only to other people, but to yourself.

Maybe I’m late to the game in getting this message. And maybe, if I’m honest with myself, it still has deeper to sink in. As an elder Millennial, I grew up on a stiff media diet of the male gaze, which is hard to shake at 40 while staring into the abyss of a biological process I can only do so much to control.

My reprisal thus far has been to slow the natural progression of aging through rigorous application of peer-reviewed science on health, nutrition, fitness and wellness. As Dr. Peter Attia lays out with compelling medical detail in his book Outlive, if you intend to be able to do the things in your elder years that you value now — whether that’s keeping up with little ones, playing a spirited game of pickleball, or just walking up a flight of stairs — we can’t merely maintain what’s “normal” for our age. We have to strive for elite in our age group today.

That may seem excessive, but don’t forget, nature continues its mass layoffs within the body with each passing decade. This is almost always hastened by an injury, which many of us will experience, sooner or later. You may think you’ll be able to do the things you’re doing now automatically when you’re a decade or two older, as long as you keep up with it. But the inconvenient truth, as Attia attests, is that if you don’t push those boundaries consistently along the way, you will fall short of your goal. We’ve all seen it happen to older folks who talk as though this prolonged decline came upon them out of the blue.

I don’t say this all to cause anyone despair. Rather, it’s meant to arm you with information to make conscientious choices about where you want to go from here. Nature will continue to divert resources away from us. That is the bleak reality, starting with our own body leading the retreat. For me, that makes it more pressing than ever to increase the resources I divert into it — body, mind and soul. Safely pushing my physical limits, when my body pushes back. Being more mindful about the nutrient balance I ingest, both physically and metaphysically. Beating back the onslaught of sarcopenia and osteoporosis, while also combating mental, psychological and spiritual atrophy. More protein, less desserts. More quality time, less screen time. More producing, less “productivity.”

I’ve seen many people meet their steady decline with resignation, allowing it to go unchallenged by their intentionality. They soothe themselves with the camaraderie of casual complaints, shrugging off their suffering as the “natural” progression of aging. That approach is certainly their prerogative, but I can’t think of anyone who’s truly happy about it.

The entropy of aging is natural. But how it happens isn’t inevitable. A one-way passage for sure, but life beyond our reproductive years doesn’t have to be a narrowing corridor. Even a Chinese finger trap will release, if you stop resisting in panic, or stop doing nothing at all, and lean into the problem with intention. The bind loosens, space opens, and forward becomes not only possible, but liberating.

Nature gives up on us, that is certain. But when we actually reflect on how happy, healthy and capable we want to feel, quite literally, for the rest of our lives, the imperative that’s ours to embrace becomes simply not giving up on ourselves.

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Imagine cruising along on your first draft.

You’re about three-quarters of the way done extracting ideas from your overwrought brain and assembling them elegantly on the written page. Things are looking and feeling amazing. There’s a light at the end of tunnel!

Then that light turns into a train barreling down at you in the form of your dev editor: “I seriously think you should change the POV to first person.” 🙇‍♀️😣

You know she’s right — it’s a contemporary romance, after all. First person is a tried-and-true perspective that helps romance readers identify with the MC. But in addition to the horror of having to go back and update more pronouns in your draft than modern day public bathroom signage, you’re going to have to rewrite some scenes too, now that third person omniscient is out the window. And, damn — some scenes aren’t going to make it in there at all.

I had a choice, of course. No one was holding a gun to my head. I could pretend I didn’t see the dev note and keep moving forward with my original vision. Or I could take it as a learning opportunity (a tedious one, at that) and do what I knew deep down would make the story better.

As writers, we’re faced with these perspective shifts in the prolonged gestational period that is writing a book, whether it’s your first work of fiction (like mine, August Recess), or your umpteenth bestselling novel. No one — probably not even Emily Henry (crossing myself before the romance gods) — writes a one-draft wonder and gets out of this process unscathed.

But for those who brave the heat of the crucible and emerge like a phoenix to tell about it, a change of perspective (quite literally, in my case, though it could be anything) is usually going to make your work better. Especially if you genuinely get behind it. You’ll be amazed how resilient you and your story are once faced with a little plot twist in its creation.

So what did this mean for August Recess? Sure, “Natalie” became “I,” like, 46 million times, and I had to lose that charming interstitial scene in Oliver’s office with his staffers. (I would save that outtake for another post, but it now pales in comparison to how I wound up adapting it.) Once I put in the extra work and the dust settled, the story was better. I was able to tease out more visceral emotion from my MC, and in the other places where I had to dismantle the inner psyches of non-Natalie characters, it wound up strengthening my writing. I shifted strategy to convey emotion in subtler, more poignant ways only perceived through my MC: a bite of the lip, fingers raking through hair, spittle flecking her face like venom.

So my suggestion to you, if you’re at a crossroads where your editor is urging you to do something your gears keep getting stuck on, is to save the draft as it is and file it away — leave it frozen in time. Then forge ahead on the edit you never wanted to make. Treat it like a writing class prompt. Have fun with it. You could always revisit the original version and pick up the storyline like an alternate universe in flux.

But I’m going to bet you won’t want to.

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Hi, there, 👋

I’d love to hear from you. …Yeah, you.

- the avid romance reader

- the likeminded writer (or furthest thing from it)

- the haters… sure, you can come too

Leave a comment, send me a message, or subscribe for more. I’m just getting started on here and would love to build a community.

~Alex

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“A haze hung in the low light,

clinging to the brick and weathered millwork, a filmy scrim between me and everyone else in the bar. I tried to locate the smokers, then remembered no one had been allowed to smoke in a DC bar for almost twenty years. That was half my lifetime ago, long enough that my vision had become incompatible with dimly lit places meant for twentysomethings.

I blinked as if it would clear my eyes, then noticed the open patio door. Not cigarette smoke, then, but a fine mist of gunpowder smoke from the Fourth of July fireworks riding in on the humid air. A heavy oak countertop stretched the length of the narrow room, covered in glassware, patrons clustered about. I sat at the end. A basket of beer-battered chicken wings wafted past on a tray, the smell a welcome break from the fug of stale Guinness.

I could feel my straightened brown hair going poofy as the swampy night crept in and tried to tamp down the frizz. I crossed and uncrossed my bare legs, martini glass perched in my fingertips, going for an effortless look. But my thighs smothered the barstool the way cookie dough spreads across a hot baking sheet. What I’d thought was a cute skirt now seemed ambitious. The regrettable red on my fingertips had seemed sexy at the time too.

Before I could pull my pose together, Dylan returned from the bathroom. He was in his mid-forties, tall, blondish, and built. He carried himself with the swagger of a fraternity president, snarky graphic T-shirt and flip-flops adding to the youthful, carefree aura.

Back in college. I would’ve felt lucky to capture that blue-green gaze. I even did now, as he slid onto the barstool beside me…”

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Pull up a chair next to our heroine Natalie.

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Print preorders coming soon.

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Stepping into the arena

As you’ve probably seen on my About page and first post, I’m at the final gate of publishing my debut romance novel, August Recess. While I’ve written for magazines and corporate marketing, and even got published as a nonfiction author some years ago, August Recess will be the first creative work I’m releasing into the world.

Anyone who’s done it before will tell you… it’s kind of scary. That is, opening up a deeply layered part of yourself to near-anonymous public scrutiny.

And yet, here I am, about to metaphorically hit “Submit.”

I had hoped to get August Recess out by August 1, timed with a marketer’s delight to the actual 2025 Congressional August recess. But as my writing side hustle/passion project homies will tell you, deadlines become more of a suggestion than a reality when working around a full-time gig, family, and the rest of what life throws at you.

So January 2026 it is. I was definitely not waiting for next August to roll around.

BUT, you should should see August Recess available for pre-order by the end of the month. Which maybe counts for something.

A political romance? Now??

When I started writing August Recess a couple months before the presidential election last year, I had no idea if there would be appetite for a political romance. Granted, this novel is not heavy on the inside baseball. While I wish I could write like Sorkin, the political angle serves as more of a backdrop to a story that’s about middle-aged personal growth and (of course) blossoming romance between an unlikely pair.

I was pleasantly surprised to find an outpouring of interest from beta reader candidates and editors who were presented the story’s premise. With the highly contentious American political climate right now, maybe we need an inspirational, unifying figure more than ever? Is getting that in the form of a smokin’ hot congressman book boyfriend just what the doctor ordered for those suffering from real-world political malaise?

You tell me.

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Okay, but are we talking Red or Blue book boyfriend? Asking for… a friend

The absolute last thing I intend for August Recess is to espouse a specific political ideology. And while, yes, it would be impossible to write a political romance without some ideology baked in, and readers will naturally guess at which party Congressman Oliver Thames belongs to, I hope readers find the platforms he references pretty universal to the American people.

I think one of the many disheartening things about politics right now is that even some of the most fundamental human concerns have been politicized into a Red or Blue issue, when subjects like healthcare, safety, infrastructure, and the economy should simply be citizen issues.

In full transparency, I have voted in presidential elections (going back several administrations) on both sides of the ticket. That may sound completely unthinkable to some.

That’s okay; I get it.

Our families, our romantic partners, the crowds we run in, what we’re dealing with personally, and the media we’re consuming at any given time have an outsized influence on our political views, which can make them somewhat fluid.

And mine have really run the gamut. But instead of that being a negative, I like to think it has given me a unique perspective into how some folks can be so. dead set. on their view being right. While others arguing with them feel like they’re taking crazy pills. My present-day self and my twentysomething self and all the versions in between are having that knock-down-drag-out debate somewhere in the quantum world right now.

But that’s not what this book is about. It’s about life experiences and self-transformation I think many of us can relate to. And I hope if you read August Recess, you’ll agree.

Pre-order details coming soon (as in 🤞🏻 August)

In the meantime, share this post, subscribe, leave a comment, or message me with what you think.

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I’m so glad you’re joining me here. If the enthusiasm is overpowering, it’s not who I typically am, but rather because this is my first Substack post. And, admittedly, I didn’t even know Substack existed until earlier this year. But that’s right in line with what you may like about coming to these pages in the future: the vicarious experience of middle-aged beginnings.

I recently heard Chip Conley — NYT bestselling author, TED speaker, and hospitality entrepreneur — tell a podcast audience about an ice breaker he started asking strangers at parties:

“What in your life are you a beginner at right now?”

He said this prompt usually sent these strangers searching for a polite exit. However, I, in the clear minority, perked up at the question, wishing I could have the chance run-in with Chip at a signature cocktail display to tell him about all the things I was embracing as a beginner at 40 — old enough to be called “Unc” by the three teenaged boys I live with.

While I built a successful career and strive hopelessly toward mastering a few sports and hobbies, my “mid-life chrysalis,” as Chip coined it (turning the old “mid-life crisis” on its head), is already bursting with becoming a beginner — at making sourdough, at part-time parenting of teens I met only a few years ago, and at writing a novel.

Saving sourdough and step-parenting for future posts, writing novels has been a dream of mine since elementary school, when I stapled a bunch of printer paper together to handwrite an illustrated fiction about the pair of ducks living in our backyard pond. After that, in the years of post-collegiate struggle and careerist corporate climbing, that ambition got shelved and shoved to the back of my mind. It took the culmination of varied life experiences, relationships, and the occasional manic insomnia to incubate what would become my debut romance novel, August Recess.

I hadn’t been much of a romance reader before that. In fact, my Audible library is heavy on non-fiction and self-help, which I hope you won’t hold against me. The fact I reference my “Audible library” and not my much smaller print one should give away how much time I was literally “reading” for pleasure, compared to listening to books while multitasking on my commute, or a nature walk, or some mundane activity. Yet, at this otherwise late juncture in life, I’ve chosen to become an unconventional beginner romance novelist.

The book itself is about midlife beginnings. About a woman who many of us may feel like we already know — someone who put her ambitions second to start a family, then realized one day that nothing was as she imagined it would be when she embarked upon that journey. A ride-or-die best friend and a fortunate circumstance tee her up for a chance to restart her career and rediscover love against the backdrop of Capitol Hill. It’s a story of second chances meets opposites attract, ideal for the over-educated and somewhat cynical reader who secretly wants a fighting chance at happily ever after… or at least some harmless escapism.

If that could be you (or if that sounds nothing like you, but you can’t help but be curious), subscribe here for updates, including cover reveal and pre-order details, and follow me on Insta (@AlexandraKleinAuthor) and Threads (@AlexandraKleinAuthor). I’ll also be posting BTS snippets, sneak peeks, and musings in the same vein as the book’s themes and character arcs, squarely in the women’s fiction genre.

At least that’s the plan. And we know that “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face,” or so heavyweight boxing legend Mike Tyson (a reference squarely outside the women’s fiction genre) is famously misquoted as saying.

So whether I land some great hits or only swings and misses, I hope you’ll be so kind as to remind me… I’m still a beginner.

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