A week ago, I became a grandmother for the first time.

I knew I was excited. We all were. We waited with the kind of anxious anticipation that makes time move strangely, too fast and too slow at the same time. But I was not fully prepared, and really, how could I be, for the tsunami of it. Relief that everyone was healthy. Joy at this new beginning for all of us. And love for this tiny, perfect girl who arrived and immediately rearranged every priority in the room without making a sound.

A few days later, a friend said to me, “You should write it all down. The feelings. The wisdom. Everything you want her to know. Write it down before you forget it all.” She chuckled when she said that last part. She knows how our brains work at this age. Too much to hold onto. Too much already slipping.

So I woke up at dawn, the way I always do when I need to write, and I sat down with my coffee. And the first thing that surfaced wasn’t practical. It wasn’t about money or career advice or choosing the right partner.

It was this: live your life like nobody cares.

The Empty Theater

That sounds harsh when you first hear it. It’s not. Or at least, it wasn’t for me.

I spent a good portion of my life performing. Not on a stage, but in rooms, in relationships, in work, in the quiet daily act of editing myself to fit whatever I thought was expected of me. Conforming in a world that says it’s progressive but still rewards sameness. Managing perceptions. Curating the version of me that would get the least resistance.

It took me a long time to realize that the audience I was performing for was mostly not watching. They were too busy running their own show, rehearsing their own lines, managing their own version of the same thing. The judgment I spent years organizing my life around was largely imaginary. Not entirely, but mostly.

And when that finally lands, the feeling isn’t sadness. It’s relief. And then it’s almost funny, honestly. All those years, all that energy, and the theater was mostly empty seats.

Maybe that’s why I ended up where I did. I eventually landed in New Orleans, where the freak flag isn’t something you fly on special occasions. It’s the uniform. I’m a gay woman who loves design and Paris and writing about both, and I live in a city full of artists, musicians, writers, and deeply conservative southerners, sometimes all in the same room, sometimes all in the same person. My whole life is kind of funny when I look at it from the right angle. Thank God.

The Surprise on the Other Side

The part I didn’t expect? When you stop editing yourself for other people, you don’t become selfish. You become more generous.

That sounds backward, I know.

Oftentimes, “choosing yourself” gets framed as a withdrawal from other people. Pick yourself. Put yourself first. Set your boundaries. And all of that matters. But when I stopped spending so much energy on the appearance of caring, I started actually caring. More deeply, more freely, and with fewer strings attached. I became a better partner, a better parent, a better friend, and a better designer. Not because I cared less about people, but because I stopped filtering everything through what it looked like from the outside.

These days, I notice generosity differently than I used to. Real generosity, the kind that has no agenda, is something you barely realize you’re doing when it’s genuine. There’s no calculation, no expectation of return. It just happens, almost quietly, because you have more to give when you’re not managing how everything looks.

And the healing that comes from that kind of openness is mostly behind the scenes. It’s invisible, but it’s more powerful than any of the obvious self-improvement work I’ve ever done.

The catch, and I don’t think anyone talks about this enough, is that truly seeing people and really connecting with them takes time. And time is finite. You can’t show up deeply for everyone, which means being honest about who you actually have room for. Not in a closed-off way. More in an intentional one. The door stays open, but the table only seats so many.

Choosing yourself at the expense of others is a different thing entirely. That’s not freedom. That’s just ego with better branding. The real thing is quieter than that, and it looks like showing up fully and letting other people do the same.

Still Listening

It would be nice to report that once you stop curating yourself for other people, the work is done. It isn’t. Not even close.

The inner work gets all the credit. The self-awareness, the therapy, the reflection. And all of that is real.

But the harder work, the one I’m still doing every day, is being truly aware of others. Not the appearance of awareness, but the real thing. Actually listening.

I catch myself in conversations, mid-sentence sometimes, and realize I haven’t heard a word the other person said because I’m already composing my response, already formulating my point, already waiting for my turn. And I have to pull myself back. Sometimes I catch it in time. Sometimes I don’t.

I think it comes from years of not feeling heard. We all carry some version of that. When you spend a long time feeling invisible or talked over, the hunger to be heard gets so loud that it drowns out your ability to hear anyone else. It becomes a habit, and then it becomes invisible to you.

Breaking that cycle takes more daily effort than any of the internal self-discovery work ever did. It’s the advanced class, and I’m still very much enrolled.

But the daily practice extends to everything, not just listening.

I changed careers in the second half of my life, which sounds brave but was really just the logical result of finally listening to myself. My old career lives inside the new one, alongside writing and new technology and projects that are still finding their legs. Not everything is working yet, and some of it is beautifully imperfect. But I love the challenges these days in a way I didn’t used to, and I think that’s because I have more room for them now that I’m not spending all my energy worrying about what everyone thinks.

This is one reason I love writing, Substack specifically. It gives me the space that real-time conversation doesn’t. I can form a thought without racing. When someone responds, I can sit with what they actually said and absorb it before I react. That’s not a limitation. It’s self-knowledge. And building your life around how you actually function instead of how you think you should might be the most practical form of “live like nobody cares” there is.

Courage, and the People Behind It

I keep coming back to the same question, and I don’t think I have a clean answer for it: what is everyone so afraid of?

If you look closely enough, every single person walking around has something that sits outside the norm. Something unique, something a little different, something they’ve learned to tuck away. Even the most traditional, buttoned-up person you know has something they only do when nobody’s watching, tucked neatly in a drawer they don’t open at dinner parties.

These aren’t new questions. People have been asking them forever. But maybe the value isn’t in the answer. Maybe it’s in keeping the question visible, reminding each other to wonder, because the moment we stop asking is the moment we stop noticing that we’re afraid at all.

And living like nobody cares, in the face of that fear, takes courage. Especially these days, and especially when you’re young.

It is one thing for me, at my age, with my experience and my hard-won sense of self, to say “be exactly who you are.” It is another thing entirely for a young person to do it in a world where people who pretend to care too much, and about the wrong things in my humble opinion, can make it feel genuinely dangerous to be yourself.

Being brave at a young age means you need brave and loving people behind you. Parents, grandparents, friends, chosen family, people who don’t just say “be yourself” and then leave you alone with the consequences. People who show up and stand behind the courage, not just applaud it from a distance.

Her parents are those people. Mabel and I are those people. And so are her other grandparents. She has six of us, by the way, and she is the first grandchild for every single one. Six grown adults who have navigated careers and heartbreaks and second acts of their own, all completely undone by one tiny girl who doesn’t even know our names yet.

She will not lack for backup. Or opinions. Or people willing to show up.

I’ll try to be thoughtful as I hand out my unsolicited wisdom, because I know the difference between giving advice and giving backup.

She’ll get both.

Before I Forget

My friend said to write it down before I forget. So here it is. Not all of it, not even most of it, but the thing that came first, before the coffee got cold, before the sun was all the way up.

Live your life like nobody cares.

Not because nobody does, but because the people who actually care about you, the real ones, are never the ones asking you to be smaller or quieter or more like everyone else.

And the rest of them? They’re not watching anyway. They never really were.

She’ll figure out the rest. I did, eventually, imperfectly, at dawn, still catching myself, still pulling back, still practicing. Still working on the diplomacy part, if I’m being honest. Still figuring it out.

But lighter than I used to be. And paying better attention than I used to.

Which might be the whole point.

Oh, and sweetheart? Eat your vegetables. Get outside and into nature every chance you get. Read everything you can get your hands on. Wear your sunscreen.

And always, always listen to your abuelas.

We know things.

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Valentine’s week has me thinking about how love changes as we grow.

My wedding had a band that wrapped up by ten.

When we got hungry later, we wandered into town to a bar and ended up eating turkey sandwiches sometime around midnight. My big splurges were a fairytale dress and a flower-heavy cake that could have fed a small village.

It snowed that quiet week between Christmas and New Year’s. Soft piles outside the church windows. Everything sparkled. Including our expectations.

We were young and wildly optimistic. We believed love and commitment would carry us through anything.

And honestly, it carried us through a lot.

We raised two incredible children. We built a life together. And eventually, we realized that the life we were building was taking us in different directions. Years later, we are both happily partnered with other people and still genuinely friendly.

Sometimes that is the happy ending. Just not the one you picture at twenty-three.

What we did not do back then was ask many hard questions. About money. About ambition. About how we each handle stress. About what happens when one person grows in a direction the other did not expect. We assumed love would smooth the edges for us.

It turns out love is powerful. It just is not magic glue.

I still love the sparkle though.

I love a dress that makes you feel like the main character. I love a room full of people cheering for two humans brave enough to choose each other out loud. I love the flowers and the music and the kind of joy that makes everyone cry a little during the vows.

I will never be anti-wedding. I will never be anti-magic.

What I have learned is that the part that keeps me coming back to love has less to do with the party and more to do with what happens after the last photo is posted.

No one posts the first disagreement about how to load the dishwasher.

No one captions the moment you realize your partner’s quirks are not a phase. They are simply who they are.

No one makes a reel about the quiet conversations about money, or the “discussion” about whose family you are seeing for the holidays, or the apology after something small turns sharp.

Those moments do not photograph well. But they are where the relationship actually lives.

For a long time, I avoided hard conversations. I hoped love would smooth things out for me. I thought if we cared about each other enough, the rest would sort itself out.

It does not.

What has changed my relationships, across the board, is learning to say the thing sooner. To clear the air before it gets heavy. To ask a question instead of making an assumption. To lean toward the people who are willing to meet me in the conversation and gently step back from the ones who are not.

That shift changed my former marriage. It changed my relationship with my children. It changed my friendships. And it is one of the reasons I have the partnership I have now.

I live with my partner. We came into this relationship with fewer illusions and more honesty. We still have plenty to learn. But we are on the same page most of the time, and when we are not, we talk about it.

When you are aligned ninety-five percent of the time and willing to talk through the other five, something settles. That kind of communication feels less like a performance review and more like cleaning the air before it gets stale.

That feels romantic to me in a way I did not understand the first time around.

I watch my kids navigate love now, and I am genuinely impressed. They love a good aesthetic, sure. But they also talk about expectations and boundaries in a way my generation never did. They are more emotionally fluent. They name things sooner. They expect to share the load.

My parents’ generation believed in grit. You fixed what you could and got on with it.

My generation learned some things the long way. Divorce. Therapy. Blended families. Second chances. We figured it out midstream and carried the lessons forward.

Every generation works with the tools it has. The tools look different. The work does not. Choosing each other over and over again is still brave.

The wedding is a celebration. The relationship is where you live.

And when the relationship feels like a warm, safe place to land at the end of the day, the sparkle does not disappear. It becomes even more luminous. The butterflies do not go away. They just feel less frantic and more steady.

Valentine’s week is a beautiful excuse to celebrate the flowers, the photos, and the magic. It is also a good moment to check in. Not in a heavy way. Just a small pause to ask, “How are we doing?”

That is why I created the relationship quizzes. Not to diagnose anyone. Not to fix anything. Just to open conversations with a little humor and curiosity. The kind that keeps things light while still moving them forward.

Compatible, Combustible, or Just…Lackluster? was meant to make it easier to start talking.

And if you want more ways to keep the connection playful, my book Love Laughs is full of prompts and ideas to remind you why you chose each other in the first place

I still believe in the sparkle.

I just believe even more in the quiet, everyday moments that make you want to stay.

Happy Valentine’s week.

May your love feel magical when it needs to.
And may it feel like home on all the ordinary days in between.

xo,
Carter

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My parents met at a dance in High School. An actual dance, with a band and punch and probably some very awkward small talk. My dad asked my mom to dance, she said yes, and that was that. They were married for over sixty years.

Simple. Terrifying. But simple.

When I was dating, it was a little more complicated. I met people at college bars, through friends, at work, once on a train in Greece (very romantic, would recommend). You saw someone, you talked to someone, you exchanged phone numbers on a napkin. Then you waited by the phone. The actual phone. Attached to the wall…or you hoped to ‘bump into them’ again… and sometimes that actually happened!

The process had its own kind of agony, but at least you knew what someone looked like before you caught feelings.

Now? My kids and their friends (and my friends…and me, for that matter) meet people through apps. They swipe, they match, they text for weeks. Sometimes months. They build entire relationships with people they’ve never been in the same room with. They know someone’s music taste, political views, and feelings about pineapple on pizza before they know what their laugh sounds like.

It’s a whole different world. And honestly, I don’t know if it’s easier or harder. Probably both.

The Menu Got Bigger. The Appetite Stayed the Same.

I have thoughts on what happened. The options exploded, but the hunger didn’t change.

My parents’ generation had a small menu. You picked from whoever was at church, in the neighborhood, at school, or related to someone your mother knew. Limited options, but also limited overthinking. You picked someone, and you made it work.

My generation had more choices. We could meet people outside our zip code, outside our social circle. We had personal ads (remember those- it sounds so sketchy now?) and later, early dating sites that felt a little embarrassing to admit you used.

Now the menu is infinite. You can swipe through hundreds of faces in an hour. You can filter by height, by hobbies, or by whether they want kids. You can find someone who checks every box on paper and still feel nothing when you finally meet.

The choosing was never the hard part. The connection is the hard part. And no app has figured out how to guarantee that.

Texting Is Not Dating

I have another theory. And I’m not a scientist, so take this with a grain of salt. But I think we’ve accidentally created a new stage of relationships that didn’t exist before: the texting purgatory.

You match. You start talking. You text every day. You share things. You start to feel something. And then three weeks in, you finally meet and realize... nothing. No spark. No chemistry. Just a nice person you already told your middle name and your childhood trauma to.

That’s a lot of emotional investment for a first date that goes nowhere.

Or the opposite happens. You meet, and there IS a spark, but now it feels so high stakes because you’ve already built this whole thing in your head. One weird moment, and it all feels ruined.

We didn’t used to have this problem. You met someone, you felt something, or you didn’t, you moved on. Now you can fall for someone’s texting personality and have no idea if that translates to real life. And the worst-case scenario is that you fall for someone who is nothing like their texting persona or is not real at all.

It’s exhausting.

But the Butterflies? Same as Always.

This is the part that makes me hopeful. Despite all the changes, some things haven’t moved an inch.

The nervousness before a first date. The wondering if they like you as much as you like them. The way your stomach flips when they text back. The hope that this one is different.

My mom felt that at the dance in 1959.

I felt it waiting for a call in 1985….and in 2023

My daughter felt it staring at her phone in 2021.

Different decades. Different technology. Same butterflies.

That’s the part we can’t optimize or automate or swipe our way out of. The human part. The messy, hopeful, terrifying part.

A Little Help For the Journey

If you’re out there navigating this brave new world of dating, just know you’re not alone. The tools have changed, but the feelings are timeless. And if you need a little help figuring out what you want, who you’re dealing with, or whether this situation you’re in is actually going somewhere...

I made some quizzes for that

Check them out here: Compatible, Combustible, or Just…Lackluster? 👈

And if you want a modern dating sidekick, my book ChatGPT is My Wingman 👈 is all about using today’s tools to make the search a little less painful. Because if we’ve got the technology, we might as well use it, a little polish while keeping it authentic!

Happy Valentine’s week. May your matches turn into real connections. And may the butterflies be worth it.

xo, Carter

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I was fourteen years old, sitting cross-legged on my best friend’s bedroom floor, flipping through a Cosmo magazine we definitely weren’t supposed to have. We’d already skipped past the articles we didn’t understand and landed on the good stuff: a quiz called something like “Is He Really Into You?” or “What’s Your Ideal First Date?”

We took it so seriously. Like, pencil in hand, reading each question out loud, debating whether “sometimes” was closer to A or C. The results told us things about ourselves we desperately wanted to know. Or at least, things we wanted someone else to confirm.

I was convinced those quizzes held actual wisdom. They did, sometimes, make you think about who you were and who you wanted to be.

I’m not fourteen anymore, thank God. I’ve dated, been married, been divorced, dated...again, and I am now happily partnered up. I’ve raised kids, started businesses, and lived a whole life. And you know what I still do?

Take quizzes.

Not the Cosmo ones anymore…do they still exist… (asking for a friend). But I still find myself drawn to those “what kind of person are you” questions. The ones that promise a little clarity. A little insight. A mirror held up at just the right angle.

And I don’t think I’m alone.

We Never Stop Wanting Answers

There’s something about a quiz that feels safe. You’re not saying “I think I’m in a situationship and it’s making me crazy” out loud to another human. You’re just... circling B. Selecting “mostly agree.” Answering hypotheticals about what you’d do if he or she didn’t text back for three days.

But really, you’re asking yourself the hard questions. The quiz just gives you permission.

My mom’s generation did this too, even if it looked different. They asked their friends, their sisters, their mothers. “Do you think he’s serious?” “Is this normal?” “How do I know if it’s real?”

My generation asked Cosmo. And our friends on the phone for hours with the cord dragged down the hall to your bedroom. And sometimes a therapist.

Gen Z asks TikTok. And Reddit. And they take personality tests and attachment style quizzes and love language assessments and send the results to each other like it’s a form of intimacy. Which, honestly, maybe it is.

The format changes. The longing doesn’t.

The Questions Stay the Same

Whether you’re seventeen and wondering if your crush likes you back, or thirty-four and wondering if your boyfriend is ever going to commit, or fifty-seven and wondering if it’s too late to find someone new... the questions underneath are the same.

Is this right? Am I enough? What do I actually want? Why do I keep ending up here?

A quiz won’t answer all of that. But sometimes it cracks a door open. Sometimes seeing your “result” makes you realize what you were hoping it would say. And that’s information too.

I Made Some Quizzes

If I am being honest, I was supposed to be working on my next book, cue the distraction tactics in the form of “I think the world needs some quizzes about relationships” - of course!

I wrote a whole collection of them, actually. Not because I think a quiz can solve your love life. But because I think the right questions, asked at the right time, can shake something loose.

They’re a little funny. They’re honest. They’re the kind of thing you can take alone at midnight when you’re spiraling, or with your partner on a road trip when you’re bored of podcasts, or with your best friend over wine when you need to figure out why you’re still texting that guy.

Because apparently I’m still that girl on the floor with the magazine. Just with better questions now.

Check out the quiz bundle here: Compatible, Combustible, or Just…Lackluster? 👈

And if you want more relationship fun, my book:

Love Laughs 👈 Funny Conversations Starters, Activities For Couples, And Romantic Ideas For Date Night and Beyond.

Happy Valentine’s week. May your answers be revealing and your results be kind.

xo, Carter

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I was listening to an old podcast with Jay Shetty and Joe Dispenza when Joe mentioned an experiment that made me pause.

They paired older people with younger people for a week. Just seven days of sharing space, conversation, meals, stories, and daily life. They were not happy about it at first; they did not think they could last a full 7 days together, but they did, and they loved it!

The results were significant improvements in brain health for both groups. In one week.

The older participants benefited from the mental flexibility of younger minds. The younger ones gained from the wisdom and lived experience of their elders. It was not charity or one-sided mentorship. It was reciprocal, energized, and real.

And it made me think about something I have been noticing in my own life. The places and people that feel most alive to me almost always include a mix of generations, perspectives, and lived stages. Not just people who look like me or live like me.

If you have ever felt more inspired after spending time with someone who sees the world differently, you already understand this truth in your bones.

What Multi-Generational Community Actually Feels Like and How Age Silos Quietly Narrow Our Perspective

My parents retired to North Carolina for a time before ultimately landing in San Miguel de Allende. I loved visiting them in both places, but not for the expected reasons.

Whenever there were gatherings, I was always included. And they were always multi-generational, lively, and genuinely fun. Toddlers next to octogenarians. College kids chatting with people who had lived through wars, reinventions, migrations, and deep loss. The food was inspired, the laughter easy, the energy full of stories layered on stories.

What struck me most was how natural it felt. Nobody was forcing connection. Nobody was performing warmth. People simply talked, shared memories, compared recipes, debated books, laughed about tech frustrations, and swapped life philosophies like old friends, even when they had just met.

This was something I did not see as much in other places I have lived. In LA, in Cleveland, even in Boston, age groups tended to stay neatly siloed. Your friends matched your decade. Your social circle mirrored your career stage. Crossing generational lines felt rare unless it was family obligation or coincidence.

But in these rooted communities, especially in the South, generations blend more fluidly. And I now see what I was missing.

When you only spend time with people in your own age bracket, your world quietly narrows. Creativity dulls. Curiosity softens. Perspective tightens. You live inside a comfortable echo instead of a living exchange.

And the exchange is where growth happens.

When Wisdom Meets Elasticity

I have been working on a new project that is deeply tech-heavy by my standards. I brought on a few temporary helpers, all in their twenties, to help move it forward. And the experience has been unexpectedly energizing.

Their marketing instincts are entirely different from mine. They understand how, where, and when to share work in ways I would never naturally consider. They operate with a fearless belief that anything can become something with the right mix of timing, creativity, and digital fluency.

They make the tech feel like breathing. What takes me an hour to decipher takes them seconds. Not because they are smarter, but because their baseline reality is different. They grew up fluent in this world while I learned it as a second language.

But here is what surprised me. They genuinely value my perspective. They lean into my experience. They want my opinion on longevity, sustainability, and long-term thinking. I bring the context. They bring the speed. I bring the strategy. They bring the courage.

We both stretch in the process.

And if you are honest, you may see this dynamic playing out in your own life too. Someone younger reminds you what boldness looks like. Someone older reminds you what wisdom sounds like. The sweet spot lives right in the middle.

That is where progress feels alive, not forced.

Learning to Let Someone Else Lead and What Releasing Control Is Teaching Me About Trust and Collaboration

In the same spirit, I now work with a VA who helps me show up more consistently on social media. She gently nudges me toward letting people see the person behind the brand, not just the finished work.

She always asks me to approve posts. And I have learned to take a breath and press approve, even when my instinct wants to rewrite, refine, soften, or control.

Some of my best engagement has come from the posts that feel the most human. The slightly shaky ones. The ones that show my voice without makeup, without perfect lighting, without polish.

This has not been easy. I like precision. I like intention. I like control. But I am learning that control and connection are not the same thing.

If you also tend to overthink, over-edit, or protect your image, you might recognize this moment. That quiet tension between staying safe and stepping forward as you are.

She is teaching me that authenticity often lands deeper than perfection. That people respond to presence, not performance.

And that is a lesson I would not have absorbed if I refused to let someone else guide me.

The Expanders

Before I go any further, here is what I mean by an expander. It is someone whose life quietly stretches your sense of what is possible simply by living it out loud. They do not push or persuade. They model possibility.

A simple way to spot your own expanders is to notice who makes you feel curious instead of comparative, braver instead of smaller, and who leaves you thinking, maybe I could try that too.

There is a woman I know, someone I once worked with, who has always had the kind of energy that makes rooms feel more alive. She can connect with anyone, anywhere, effortlessly.

When I mentioned a Paris travel project I am working on, she casually shared that she had moved to Paris. Just like that. New life. New language. New rhythm. No dramatic announcement. Just action.

She is what I call an expander. Someone who shows you what is possible simply by living it.

Expanders do not necessarily offer advice. They offer visibility. They make a previously distant dream feel suddenly reachable.

You probably have one too. Someone whose choices quietly challenge your own comfort zones. Someone whose life makes you pause and think, maybe I could do that too.

You do not have to be close to your expanders. You just have to notice them. Let their courage inform yours.

Watching her step into a new life in Paris has made my own dreams feel less distant and more negotiable. And that is the power of proximity to possibility.

Community Keeps You From Shrinking

Joe Dispenza speaks about cognitive function and neurological elasticity. What I feel is something simpler and more human.

Community keeps me curious. It keeps me from retreating into patterns that feel familiar but stagnant. It keeps me from quietly making my life smaller without realizing it.

Shrinking does not announce itself loudly. It shows up as hesitation. As staying silent. As saying maybe later when you know you mean no. As convincing yourself that your best days already happened.

Right now, I am learning how to build a sustainable business without living online all day. I am learning that from people younger than me who understand systems and automation intuitively. I am exploring what long-term life in Europe might look like. I am learning from someone already doing it. I am practicing visibility. I am learning from someone who understands these platforms with ease.

What I would struggle to navigate alone is becoming clearer through exchange.

And this is where the real insight lives. We do not expand by staying surrounded only by people who mirror us. We expand by engaging with difference, curiosity, and shared humanity.

We Misunderstood Community

Somewhere along the way, we started believing community meant surrounding ourselves with people who looked, lived, and thought exactly like us. It can feel soothing at first, like sitting in a softly carpeted room where every sound is familiar and every edge has been padded. Comfortable, yes. But also strangely airless. No breeze. No shift. No surprise.

True community feels more like throwing open the windows and letting in a mix of voices, opinions, and lived experience. It might ruffle a few papers and move the curtains around, but it also brings breath, clarity, and life back into the room. along the way, we started believing community meant finding people exactly like us.

Same age. Same lifestyle. Same rhythm. Same background.

That is not community. That is comfort with borders.

True community is the meeting of contrast. It is mutual curiosity. It is the willingness to be changed by each other.

It is the moment where your strength meets my blind spot and my wisdom meets your uncertainty. We both walk away altered in the best way.

This is the ecosystem I am building now. Not just people who affirm me, but people who stretch me. Not just people who agree with me, but people who invite me into new perspective.

And something quietly powerful happens when you live this way. You start to soften. You listen differently. You grow without force.

The Practice of Showing Up

Community is not something you find. It is something you practice.

For me, that practice looks like saying yes to dynamics that stretch me. Trusting someone younger to lead when they hold the knowledge. Letting someone guide me into spaces I might avoid. Staying open instead of shrinking back.

It looks like vulnerability on purpose. Growth with intention. Curiosity even when it is uncomfortable.

And if you are building your own version of community, it might look different. It might be attending an event you normally decline. Reaching out to someone you admire. Inviting conversation instead of retreating from it.

The form changes. The courage is the same.

What Are You Building?

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I keep picturing that room again. A long table. A twenty-something leaning toward an eighty-year-old. Laughter moving the air like an open window. Neurons firing. A gentle hum of connection. The quiet rewiring that happens when two lives meet in the middle of honest conversation.

This is what stays with me. Not the theory. The moment someone chooses to pull up a chair instead of staying on the sidelines. The simple bravery of stepping into shared space and letting yourself be changed by it.

So I will leave you with this.

Where are you allowing yourself to stretch?
Who expands your idea of what is possible?
Where might community be asking you to soften instead of shield?

You do not need to overhaul your life. You just need one small act of presence. One brave step toward connection. One moment of curiosity instead of comfort.

And if you feel like sharing, I would love to hear what that looks like for you.

Because community is not perfection. It is practice.
It is showing up.
It is remembering that you are not meant to grow alone.

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I have a friend who knows more people in Los Angeles after one visit than I knew after living there for a year.

Her name is Kara, and she is one of those magical humans who can connect with almost anyone. She has a core group of great friends, but she also has this long, beautiful list of people she’s collected over the years through hobbies, work, random encounters at coffee shops. She remembers details about their lives. She follows up. She shows up.

Watching her is like watching someone speak a language I’m still learning.

I am not naturally like this. Left to my own devices, I could spend weeks holed up in my office, writing, creating, perfecting things that probably don’t need perfecting. The wider world can wait. The networking can wait. The coffee shop small talk can definitely wait.

But my closest people? The ones I’d call from jail?

Those, I don’t take lightly.

The Crew is Select (But There’s Room)

What I’ve learned about my people: the group isn’t giant. It’s select. And that’s intentional.

The ones who know your whole story, who’ve seen you at your worst and stayed anyway, who you call when something breaks or when something beautiful happens... that circle is sacred.

But select doesn’t mean exclusive. And it definitely doesn’t mean homogenous.

My crew is diverse in every way that matters. Different ages. Different cultures. Different geographies. Different life experiences. Different opinions on almost everything except the things that truly matter.

And that diversity? It’s not incidental. It’s essential.

When I’m spiraling about a business decision, I need the friend who’s built three companies and can tell me what’s normal startup panic versus actual red flags. When I’m navigating family dynamics, I need the friend who comes from a completely different family structure and can offer perspective I’d never see on my own. When I’m stuck creatively, I need the friend who works in a totally different medium and can shake me loose.

If everyone in my squad looked like me, thought like me, lived like me? I’d just be living in an echo chamber decorated with my own blind spots.

No thank you.

What It Means to Be Chosen

There’s a moment in every deepening friendship when you realize: this person has chosen me. And I’ve chosen them.

Not out of convenience. Not because we live in the same neighborhood or work at the same company. But because there’s something here. A resonance. A safety. A sense of “oh, you get it.”

Being chosen is a gift. But it’s also a responsibility.

Because once you’re on someone’s A-list, once you’ve made the emergency contact roster, you don’t get to show up halfway. You don’t get to ghost when things get hard. You don’t get to only celebrate the wins without sitting with them through the losses.

You show up. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when you don’t have the perfect thing to say. Even when all you can offer is “I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere.”

I learned this from the women in my life who have shown up for me that way. The friends who flew across the country when my life was falling apart. The ones who sent voice memos at 2am when I couldn’t sleep. The ones who told me hard truths I didn’t want to hear because they loved me enough to risk pissing me off.

That’s what it means to be someone’s person. You’re committed to the whole story, not just the highlight reel.

The Responsibility Goes Both Ways

But what I didn’t fully understand until recently: the responsibility isn’t just about showing up for them. You have to let them show up for you.

This is harder than it sounds.

I am much better at being the supporter than being the supported. I can show up for a friend in crisis with meals, advice, distraction, whatever they need. But asking for help? Admitting I’m struggling? Letting someone see me when I’m not holding it together?

That’s where I get stuck.

And I know I’m not alone in this. So many of us, especially women, especially those of us who’ve spent decades being the strong one, the capable one, the one who figures it out... we’re terrible at receiving.

But being in the vault, being one of the people someone trusts with everything, means you have to let them in. You have to trust them with the messy parts. You have to give them the gift of being needed.

When I was leaving LA, packing my house, planning to drive across country alone with Triscuit, my one-year-old rescue mutt, my friend Emily called out of the blue. “I’m coming,” she said. “We’re doing this together.”

She literally became my ride-or-die for ten days. The best ten days.

I didn’t ask her to come. I probably wouldn’t have. But she showed up anyway, and it changed everything about that trip—and about how I think about friendship.

Because friendship isn’t just about what you give. It’s the exchange. Being vulnerable enough to need someone and secure enough to be needed.

My best friends have taught me this. They’ve shown me that asking for help isn’t weakness, it’s intimacy, it’s trust. It’s saying, “I don’t have to have it all figured out with you. I don’t even have to look like I have it all figured out.”

The Gift of Different Life Stages

One of my favorite things about the people in my life is that we’re not all in the same life stage.

Some of my closest friends are in their 30s, building careers and families and trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. Some are in their 40s, navigating divorces, career pivots, and aging parents. Some are in their 60s and 70s, retired or semi-retired, finally doing the things they always wanted to do.

And me? I’m starting new businesses, about to become a grandma, figuring out what this chapter looks like.

We’re all in different rooms, but we’re in the same house.

And that matters.

My friend Rachel is in her 40s and just made a massive move—left her career in sales, moved across the country to a new city, and is starting from the bottom in design. She loves her new location, but she’s rebuilding everything. New city, new career, new name to make, new expertise to establish.

We talk when our widely different time zones allow. She reminds me what it felt like to be hungry and terrified and starting something completely new (feelings I often have in common despite our age difference). I remind her that reinvention doesn’t have an age limit, that the skills you bring from one life translate in ways you can’t see yet, that starting over always feels impossible until suddenly it doesn’t.

We prop each other up where we have similarities and differences. That’s the gift of cross-generational friendship. You’re not just mirroring each other’s experience—you’re offering what the other person needs.

My friends in their 30s remind me what it felt like to be ambitious and scared of making the wrong choice. My friends in their 60s remind me that there’s so much more ahead, that the best parts might still be coming.

We offer each other what we have. Perspective. Permission. Proof that whatever stage you’re in, you’re not alone.

Age is just one dimension of diversity, but it’s an important one. Community isn’t just about finding people like you. It’s finding people who need what you have and who have what you need.

Finding Your People Online (Or Trying To)

Community isn’t just about the people in your physical world anymore. I’m learning this slowly.

I love Substack for this. It tends to be more authentic, more vulnerable, a more real reading space than a lot of other corners of the internet. But it also gives me the same discomfort I find in the “real world.”

Finding your people online can be daunting. Scary, even. Especially for creators.

You have to put yourself and your work out there in a way that attracts other people. Like Kara at the coffee shop, but digital. And public. And permanent.

Some people are so good at this. They know how to show up, how to connect, how to build community online with what looks like ease. They comment thoughtfully. They engage genuinely. They create conversations.

And then there’s me.

I’m getting better at putting myself out there. I’m publishing more, sharing more, showing up more consistently. But it’s not an art form for me yet. It’s work. Intentional, sometimes uncomfortable work.

The introvert in me wants to write the thing, publish it, and then retreat back into my office. But that’s not how community works. Not online. Not anywhere.

You have to stay. You have to engage. You have to let people see you, respond to you, and connect with you.

And sometimes that feels just as vulnerable as asking a friend for help when you’re falling apart.

I remember my first nice comment. Someone took the time to respond to something I’d written, and it reminded me that I’m not just writing into a void. People do read what I write. Sometimes they actually comment. Sometimes they even like it.

That sounds small, but it mattered. Because building community online—especially when you’re introverted, especially when putting yourself out there feels like standing naked in a crowded room—you need those small confirmations that someone’s listening and that what you write resonates.

I’m trying. Because I think something beautiful is happening in these online spaces. People finding their tribe across time zones and continents. Writers connecting with readers who share a perspective, or who don’t and want to understand why. Creators building communities around shared values, shared struggles, shared curiosity.

It’s messy. It’s new. I’m still learning the language.

But I’m here.

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What Kara Taught Me (And What I’m Still Learning)

Back to Kara.

The woman who makes friends everywhere she goes. The one I both admire and am slightly baffled by.

What I’ve learned watching her: connection doesn’t have to be complicated.

She asks questions. She remembers answers. She follows up. She shows genuine interest in people’s lives. She’s present when she’s with you. Not checking her phone, not mentally writing her to-do list, just there.

It sounds simple. And maybe it is.

But for those of us who are more introverted, who need to recharge alone, who find small talk draining? It takes practice. It takes intention. It takes pushing past the voice that says, “I’d rather just go home.”

When I first moved to New Orleans, I was so far outside my comfort zone that I actually tried Bumble BFF. Yes, the friend-dating app. I met some genuinely funny, fun people. Coffee dates, happy hours, conversations that didn’t go anywhere but weren’t awful either.

Ultimately, it wasn’t the avenue for finding my people. But putting myself out there like that? That felt like a win. It helped me realize I could try other, maybe less drastic ways to connect. It loosened something. It made the next attempt feel less terrifying.

And once you start doing it more and more, something shifts. I’ve noticed I can actually enjoy the passing conversation, the person I meet who doesn’t become anything more than a nice chat. It’s no pressure. It’s not rejection or failure. It’s just data, as Mabel would say.

It’s practice like speed dating for friendship. You get good at recognizing people you want to maybe get to know better. People you enjoy talking to. And you get bolder about connecting more often until it starts to feel more natural.

We’ve all had those moments, too, where you feel like you want to be someone’s friend, but they don’t reciprocate. Don’t take it personally. Easier said than done, I know. But they might not have the bandwidth right now to be a friend. And that means they’re not meant for you at this moment.

It’s a lot like finding a rough diamond in a pile of polished stones. You have to sort through a lot to find the one that one rough stone that can be polished into a sparkling diamond. (cheesy metaphor I know, but who doesn’t love a shiny diamond- durable and beautiful)

I’m not going to become Kara. That’s not my goal.

But I am learning that community, even the wider, less intense kind, is worth the discomfort. Worth the effort. Worth showing up even when you’d rather hide.

Because the people I’d call at 2 am didn’t fall from the sky fully formed. Most of them started as acquaintances. Casual friends. People I met through work or hobbies or mutual friends - or back in the day, when you got to know some of your favorite people (to this day) because it was effortless. School, the neighborhood, family, and friends who were the chosen family all dropped into your life effortlessly and often permanently…in a really good way.

And then, over time, with intention, reciprocity, and showing up, they became essential.

The Cabinet Expands (If You Let It)

My board of directors isn’t closed. It’s not some exclusive club with a velvet rope and a waiting list.

But it is intentional.

I don’t let just anyone in. I can’t. The energy required to truly show up for someone, to be their person, to hold space for their whole story... that sometimes feels finite, like I only have so much to give. Of course, it is not finite, but it takes time to have someone become part of the fabric of your life, time and effort.

But there’s room. There’s always room for the right people.

The ones who challenge me. The ones who see me. The ones who are building something beautiful in their own lives and invite me to witness it. The ones who are different from me in ways that make me better and the same as I am in ways that help me feel seen and understood.

I have learned (and this might sound super obvious, but it deserves to be written regardless) that finding your people isn’t about waiting for them to appear. You have to show up. Be present. Ask questions. Take risks. Let people see you, even when it’s scary.

Be the kind of friend you want to have.

Building community, online and off, isn’t about waiting to feel brave. It’s showing up messy. Letting people see the works-in-progress. Trusting that somewhere out there, someone else is also holed up in their office, terrified to hit publish, wondering if anyone will get it. Wondering if what they made has value. Wondering if anyone will read it and be glad they did.

And maybe that’s the point. Maybe we’re all wondering the same thing, and showing up anyway is how we find each other.

The vault people, the ones you trust with everything, they’re not just comfort. They’re mirrors. They’re teachers. They’re proof that you’re not alone in this messy, beautiful, complicated thing called life.

The Responsibility is Real

So yes, the core group is select. Sacred, even. I don’t take it lightly on either side.

Because once you’re in? You’re in.

And if you’re reading this thinking, “I don’t have a huge crew and maybe I’m doing it wrong,” stop. One person who actually shows up beats a dozen surface-level connections every time. Maybe your core group is five people. Maybe it’s two. Maybe it’s one person who knows your whole story and stays anyway.

That’s enough. That’s more than enough.

The core group isn’t about having the most friends. It’s about having the right ones. The ones who make you braver, smarter, more yourself. The ones who call you on your shit and celebrate your wins in equal measure.

That’s the deal. That’s what makes them different from everyone else.

But what about everyone else? What about the wider world, the people you don’t know yet, the communities you’re still building?

That’s where it gets interesting. And honestly? That’s where it gets scary.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about why showing up beyond your inner circle feels like standing naked in a crowded room, why cross-generational friendship might save your brain (literally), and what I’m learning from people who make connection look effortless while I’m still figuring out how to not bolt from the coffee shop.

Because if the inner circle is your foundation, the wider world is where you actually have to build.

And building? That’s the hard part.

Tomorrow: Part 3 — Brain Health, the South, and Why I’m Learning to Show Up: On Building Community After 50

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I didn’t expect to cry in the Whole Foods parking lot.

But there I was, sitting in my car after a completely mundane errand, tears streaming down my face because my daughter texted me: “Can you come over for dinner tomorrow? Just want to hang out.”

For the first time in over ten years, we live in the same city.

For the first time in over ten years, “Can you come over?” doesn’t require a plane ticket, three months of planning, and the guilt of choosing which weekend works best between her life and mine.

She just... wants to hang out. And I can just... go.

This is what nobody tells you about life’s second half: sometimes the biggest gift isn’t something new. It’s something you thought you’d lost coming back around in a different form.

When Family Becomes Community Again

I spent most of my 30s and 40s building community wherever I landed. Boston, LA, then back East, then New Orleans. I got good at making friends, finding my people, creating a life in new cities. I had to; my kids were building their own lives, my career was evolving, and “home” became less about a place and more about the people I chose to surround myself with.

But what I’m learning now: when your adult children circle back into your daily life, it’s not just a family reunion. It’s a whole new kind of community.

My daughter and I are building something we’ve never had before, not a mother-daughter relationship defined by her childhood or my parenting, but a friendship between two women who happen to share DNA and a lot of history. We get coffee. We text about nothing. We chat between our work meetings, while grabbing snacks from the fridge together, and talk about work, relationships, and all the messy, beautiful stuff that makes up a life.

And next year? I’m going to be a grandma.

I cannot even write that sentence without grinning like an idiot.

This wasn’t the plan. Or maybe it was always the plan, but I didn’t know how it would feel. The freedom I’ve fought for, the ability to work from anywhere, to build a creative life on my terms, to say yes to the things that matter, suddenly has a focal point I didn’t see coming.

I get to drop everything. I get to be present. I get to show up for her journey in a way I couldn’t when I was younger, busier, more scattered.

And I want to. Desperately.

What I wish I’d known earlier: adult children want your presence more than your parenting. They want the friendship version of you, not just the mom version. I used to say that when they finished college and were on their own, I moved from a managerial, supervisory role into more of a board-of-directors advisory position. Such a fun new role to tackle, and one that requires letting go of control and trusting that they know how to run their own lives. Sometimes it just requires a LOT of tongue biting!

The Community of Shared Work

My son lives three states and a 10-hour car ride away, but we talk more now than we did when he was in high school.

Because now? We’re colleagues.

He’s a creative, an entrepreneur, a YouTuber, and an author. I’m a writer, a publisher, juggling multiple pen names, businesses, and creative projects that blur the lines between passion and profit. We compare notes. We talk strategy. We commiserate about the trials and tribulations of putting yourself out there, building an audience, dealing with rejection, celebrating small wins.

I never expected this.

When your kids are young, you dream about who they’ll become. You hope they’ll be kind, happy, successful…whatever that means. But you don’t imagine what it’s like when they become peers. When the conversations shift from “How was your day?” to “I’m thinking about pivoting my content strategy, what do you think?”

It’s not that I’m not still his mom. I am. But I’m also someone he calls when he needs to brainstorm, when he’s stuck, when he’s celebrating a milestone. And he’s someone I call for the same reasons.

This is community. The cross-generational, wisdom-meets-elasticity, I-have-lived-experience-and-you-have-fresh-perspective kind of community.

And it’s one of my favorite parts of this chapter.

The Community of Two

Then there’s Mabel.

My partner. My PR agent. My constant cheerleader. My ride-or-die in the truest sense.

She is completely, maddeningly at ease putting herself out there. She doesn’t mind hearing “no.” She rarely takes rejection to heart unless it has to do with her actual heart. She’s the one who pushes me to keep going, keep learning, keep putting my creative work into the world even when I want to retreat into my office and hide.

I am not naturally like this.

I could spend days, weeks, honestly, holed up working on the next project, perfecting something that probably doesn’t need to be perfect, avoiding the vulnerability of actually sharing what I’ve made.

But Mabel doesn’t let me.

She’s the one who says, “You finished the book. Now publish it.” She’s the one who reminds me that progress beats perfection every single time. She’s the one who celebrates the small wins with me when I’m too busy fixating on what’s not working yet.

The community of two is a special thing. It’s not your family of origin. It’s not your ‘middle-of-the-night’ friends. It’s the person who sees you at your most vulnerable, your most ambitious, your most terrified, and stays. Not just stays, but champions you.

That’s Mabel.

She is my community when the wider world feels too loud, too judgmental, too exhausting. She’s the one who makes me brave enough to show up everywhere else.

The Responsibility of the Inner Circle

What I’m realizing, as I look at these three relationships, my daughter, my son, Mabel, is that the inner circle isn’t just comfort. It’s responsibility.

My daughter needs me to show up, not as the mom with all the answers, but as someone who’s walked through some shit and lived to tell about it. My son needs me to respect his process while sharing hard-won lessons so he doesn’t have to learn everything the hard way. Mabel needs me to be brave enough to receive her support, to not shrink when she believes in me more than I believe in myself.

And I need them right back.

My daughter teaches me presence. My son teaches me fearlessness. Mabel teaches me that rejection is just data, not death.

This is what makes family-as-community different: the stakes are higher, but so is the payoff. You’re building something that spans decades, weathers changes, and doesn’t end when you move cities or pivot careers.

It’s not transactional. It’s foundational.

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Starting New, Not Starting Over

I used to think about this phase of life as “starting over.” New city, new career focus, new creative projects, new ways of making a living.

But that’s not what this is.

I’m not starting over. I’m starting new—with a mountain of life lived behind me. With my daughter nearby for the first time in a decade. With my son as a creative peer. With Mabel as my constant. With decades of mistakes and victories and messy beautiful lessons supporting every step forward.

That mountain? It’s not baggage. It’s foundation. Every mistake, every pivot, every hard lesson, they’re not things I’m recovering from. They’re things that make me who I am right now. And right now is pretty damn interesting.

Integration doesn’t mean doing it all at once. Some weeks, the writer gets priority. Some weeks, the grandma-to-be. Some weeks, I’m just trying to keep the business afloat, and that’s enough. The versions of me don’t compete anymore. They take turns.

Even though I make a conscious decision to integrate and pivot where needed, I still feel torn and pulled from time to time. I’m learning to let that go and rearrange. Sometimes I get up early to write, which feels like a great way to start the day. I’ve already accomplished something I love and need to do, before the rest of the world wakes up. It’s not perfect. But it’s working; besides, age means you sleep less, for better or worse.

The inner circle isn’t static. It shifts, it evolves, it surprises you.

Ten years ago, I didn’t know my daughter and I would get to build this kind of friendship. I didn’t know my son and I would talk about work the way we do now. I didn’t know Mabel would become my person.

And I definitely didn’t know I’d be crying in a Whole Foods parking lot because my kid wants to have dinner.

But here we are.

The inner circle is where it all begins. It’s where you learn what community really means, not just the comfort of being known, but the responsibility of showing up. The gift of being seen. The work of staying present.

And it’s where I’m learning, again and again, that starting new isn’t about reinvention. It’s about integration.

All the versions of me, the mom, the partner, the writer, the entrepreneur, the friend, the soon-to-be-grandma, they’re all here. They all have a place. They all get to show up.

And for the first time in a long time, I’m not trying to choose which one matters most.

They all do.

If you’re reading this and thinking about your own inner circle—the people who know your whole story, who’ve seen you at your best and worst, you’re further along than you think. Maybe it’s one person. Maybe it’s three. Maybe it’s a partner who champions you, a kid who calls for advice, a friend who knows when you’re not okay even when you say you’re fine. That’s community. That’s foundation. And that’s enough to build on.

If you’re reading this and thinking, “I want that kind of community but I don’t know where to start,” you’re already starting. Wanting it matters. Noticing what’s missing matters. Tomorrow we’ll talk about the friends who become family—and why building that crew is harder (and more worth it) than anyone admits.

Tomorrow: Part 2 — The Art of the Inner Circle: On Friendship, Diversity, and the Responsibility of Being a Ride-or-Die

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