Hello friend,
Two weeks ago I spectacularly vomited my feelings all over the page, hit send, and expected every one of you to read them.
You're welcome. 😂
And then you wrote back. So many of you. You told me about feeling lost, about being tired of trying to work out what's next, about the "oh, you too?" moment. That's exactly what I was hoping for when I hit send, so thank you.
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WHERE WE LEFT OFF
Here's the update. I still don't know what I'm doing next. And the strangest part is, I'm okay with it. I know. Who is this woman, and what did she do with the one who needs a plan?
For years, meditation has been where I go to open up. I sit, I breathe, and whatever wants to come forward comes forward. I don't go looking for answers. It's my pleasure principle, and it's worked for me for a very long time. But lately I've been showing up to meditation like I've booked a meeting with the universe. Okay, what's next? What's the plan? Can we get some clarity here, please? And I know myself well enough to know that when I'm steering, I'm not listening. I'm fishing for an answer that will make me feel better about not knowing.
Then an old friend asked me something simple. How are you defining success?
And I couldn't get past the answer. Money. For most of my life, that's been the measure. Is it profitable? Can I turn it into income? What's the return on my time?
I know where that comes from. I was a single mom in my twenties. There was no sitting around wondering what would bring me joy. There were bills, a child, and a life to hold together. You hustle. You figure it out. You make it work. And after enough years of that, the hustle stops being something you do and becomes something you are.
But why does something only count when it makes money? Why can't I write these Monday letters because I love writing them? Why can't I tell women's stories because I love telling them? Why does every single thing I enjoy have to become a business? Can't a woman just love something without figuring out how to monetize it?
Or is that just me?
Maybe these things grow into something more one day. Maybe they don't. Right now I'm enjoying them, and I'm starting to believe that's reason enough.
That's also why I've been quieter on social media. Nothing terrible happened and I haven't given up. I just needed to hear my own voice again. There are about a million people out there telling us how to live, what to eat, how often to post, and what success is supposed to look like, and after a while I couldn't tell my wants from theirs. So I've stepped back a bit. I'm listening.
What I've been listening to, mostly, is nine women.
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THIS WEEK
This week I put together the Season One recap of The Crone Stories, and it comes out this Friday. There's no one woman's story this time. It's a look back at the nine women who trusted me with theirs: what they lived through, what they found, and what happened when they heard their own stories told back to them. And a little of what happened to me.
I've listened to women's stories for most of my working life, so I honestly thought I knew what I was doing. But holding a woman's story, writing it, and then speaking it out loud is a whole different thing. I cried telling every single one. Sometimes for what she'd been through. Sometimes because her story walked straight into my own life. And sometimes just because she trusted me. Some of these women have known me for decades. A couple barely knew me at all. None of them had a freaking clue what I was going to do with what they handed me, and they handed it over anyway. I will never take that lightly.
And here's what knocked me sideways. I knew some of these women for years and had no idea what they'd been carrying. Then the episodes went out and the messages started coming in. Women who'd cried. Women who'd had an aha about their own lives. Women who heard their mother in someone else's story. Nine women told pieces of their lives, I carried those pieces from one side of the circle to the other, and women who'd never lived any of it were changed by it.
Which made me think about how we talk to each other the rest of the week.
"How are you?"
"Good, thanks. You?"
"Good."
And off we go. Not every trip to the grocery store needs to be a counselling session. But I think we stop ourselves from going deeper more often than we'd admit. We don't want to be nosy. We don't want to make it awkward. And if we're honest, we're afraid of the answer.
I used to sell a product, and I hated asking people how it was going. What if they didn't like it? What if they complained? What would I even say? So sometimes I just didn't ask. I think we do the same with each other.
Your friend's last kid moves out and you say, "Oh, you must be loving the quiet!" What if she isn't? What if she's sitting in that quiet house wondering who she is now that her days aren't full of being Mom? What if you asked, "How are you really doing with the kids gone? What's been the hardest part?"
Your friend retires after forty years. Instead of "Lucky you!", what if you asked, "Are you loving it, or has it been harder than you thought?"
Someone you know just had her first Thanksgiving without her mom. Instead of steering around it, what if you said, "I've been thinking about you. I know this was your first one without her. How was it?"
And then listened. No advice, no fixing, no jumping in with your own story. Just listen.
She might say she's fine. She might not want to talk about it, and that's okay too. But she might say, "Actually, it's been really hard." And imagine what it means to her that somebody asked.
You don't need the perfect question, and nobody's asking you to go digging through other people's lives. Just notice a little more. Be a little more curious. Be brave enough to open the door.
Because if this first season has taught me anything, it's this.
We need each other.
We need the women who've already walked through what we haven't. We need to know someone else has felt what we're feeling. And sometimes we just need someone across the table to say, "Tell me more."
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A QUESTION TO CARRY
So here's my ask for you this week. Think of one woman. Someone in a transition, someone you haven't talked to in a while, someone whose life has shifted. Reach out, and ask her a question that tells her you've been paying attention. If she opens the door, walk through it and listen.
Who's the woman you haven't asked yet?
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As for me, I'm going to keep writing these letters, keep telling these stories, and keep listening, to the women around me and, right now especially, to myself. I still don't know exactly what's next. But I'm not trying to force the answer anymore. I'm enjoying what's in front of me, and today that feels like a pretty good definition of success.
In love, light and laughter,
Karen
P.S. This Friday is the Season One recap. After that, two stories closer to home: first mine, about walking the Camino, why I chose those 800 kilometres and where my life was when I did. Then my mother's, told through my eyes.
Season Two starts in January and I'm still looking for women. You don't need a remarkable life or a tidy lesson, just a piece of your life you're willing to share. You can stay anonymous if you'd like.