If you’ve been around long enough, you know that painfully sweet feeling of holding a Bic lighter over your head in a crowded stadium until the flicker gets a little too hot on your thumb, but you still resist the urge to let go of the orange lever keeping the flame lit.

iPhone flashlights have become the replacement now, lighting up auditoriums across the world. Certainly less blister-producing, though I remember those fan scars all too well.

But our phones are doing a lot more than that.

They’re also telling us where to go, what to buy, what to wear, what to eat, what to read, where to stay and, increasingly, who we might want to become.

Trust me, I know. I spent much of this summer with one of those phones in my hand.

I also spent it doing things I genuinely love.

I knocked bucket list items down one after another. I went gorilla trekking in Rwanda. I spent four days detoxing at a longevity institute in Mexico. I strolled along the promenades in beach towns along the Pacific Coast and spent quiet mornings sipping smoothies from SunLife Café while taking in the boho chic lifestyle in Malibu.

My camera reel is evidence of a summer well-traveled and well lived.

And I assure you, it was.

Yet somehow, I came home feeling less like myself.

It took me a while to understand the contradiction.

I wasn’t unhappy and certainly not ungrateful. Quite the opposite. I had spent months with people I love, in places I love, doing things I had chosen to do, some of which I never dreamed of doing.

But I had also spent an extraordinary amount of time in motion. I crisscrossed the globe and was on more airplanes and in more airports than I can count. I was planning the next destination while still standing in the current one and filling those endless hours of waiting and traveling by clicking and scrolling and consuming. I wish I could say otherwise, but that’s the reality.

Somewhere in there, my summer started to feel a little like Disneyland.

Where everything was perfectly queued. Every menu item reviewed before I had even arrived and taken a bite. Everything optimized for all the obvious reasons. Let’s be real. If you get to do it once, you want to do it right.

I was never lost. And apart from one delayed bag, I was never at a loss.

But that was almost the problem.

We went to San Diego for a wedding toward the end of the summer and I could not figure out what to wear. I know, it sounds so petty. I don’t keep a closet full of formal attire, so buying, renting, or borrowing was required. But I simply couldn’t decide. And before you decide to stop reading, give me a moment. I think you’ll relate.

I think I looked at every dress on the internet. I saw what other people were wearing to formal weddings, what was trending, what looked good on someone with my body type, what other women had bought and returned, what some faceless Instagram page had bundled together and deemed appropriate for an August wedding in Southern California.

I scrolled myself into static. Complete shopping paralysis.

Eventually, the day before we left, I ordered a green dress and had it drop-shipped to our Airbnb. By the grace of God, it fit and the steam iron got the wrinkles out.

And the irony was, I loved it.

I would choose it again.

That last part matters.

Because I’ve been thinking a lot about influence lately, and I don’t think influence is the problem.

We are supposed to be influenced.

People introduce us to books that change us. Friends take us somewhere we never would have found ourselves. Someone recommends a restaurant and we have one of the best meals of our lives. We travel somewhere because another person went first and knows we will equally love it.

Our lives have always been shaped by what other people show us. It’s part of the human experience.

What’s changed is the volume.

We’ve always been influenced by other people, but we’ve never had this many people influencing us at once. There are more places to go, things to buy, ways to live and versions of ourselves to consider than we could possibly get to in one lifetime. And somehow we’ve managed to put access to all of it into a five-inch screen we carry in our back pocket.

This is not a revolutionary idea. But it’s the first time I’ve felt truly at odds with it.

Perhaps it’s because I’m in the midst of my own era of reinvention, one I just wrote about in Empty Nest: Your Most Informed Reinvention Yet. I’m actively thinking about what I want next, and suddenly I feel like I’m drowning in options.

A nice problem to have, admittedly. But an overwhelming one.

Let’s be real. Before our feet hit the floor in the morning, we can consume dozens of other people’s choices.

And eventually, something subtle can begin to happen.

Exposure starts masquerading as desire.

I am the first to acknowledge that I am susceptible to the digital age’s latest marketing tactics. It’s like I have no armor against it.

You see the cozy blanket enough times where wanting it starts to feel like your idea and needing it feels like a requirement for comfort.

Or in my case, you see the destination enough times and it becomes your bucket list. Hence gorillas in Rwanda.

Or alternatively, you watch someone else’s morning routine and begin questioning your own.

Or ultimately, you see another person’s career, body, house, marriage, business, wellness practice, success, reinvention or life and some little part of you begins asking:

Should I be doing that too?

I know I am not alone here. Instagram shopping has become the modern-day version of QVC, with packages begin arriving long after you forgot about that late night order.

And you don’t need to be sitting at a midlife crossroads to feel the weight of this. I see it happening with my own 21-year-old daughter as she explores what comes next after college.

This isn’t a life-stage problem that arrives with an AARP card. It’s a life problem that comes with an iPhone and 24/7 access to everyone else’s choices.

Most of the time, we don’t even notice when this is happening, and perhaps that’s what frightens me.

I am a fully educated adult woman with an MBA and a CV that points toward success. I often joke that I missed my calling as a CIA agent. I am clearly someone who likes to be informed.

Yet I realize I am slowly bleeding away my own agency.

There is no dramatic moment when we decide to give it up. It happens quietly. One search, one recommendation, one review, one double tap, one metric and one fulfilled shopping cart later.

We become extraordinarily good at making informed decisions while becoming less practiced at making intuitive ones.

Even the simple guardrail of requiring cash or a credit card in hand is gone. The ease with which we make decisions has become a little like driving on autopilot, without much thought about how we arrived at the destination.

I started forming ideas the way AI forms sentences, predicting the next likely thing based on everything I had already consumed.

The algorithm isn’t just guessing what I like anymore. It’s actually showing me who I could become. And if I do a little extra work, I can meet my future-self avatar who’s already doing the thing I haven’t even fully baked in my own mind.

It’s both wild and completely creepy to think about.

And after enough exposure to all those possible selves, I realize I’m having a harder time hearing who I was underneath all the layers I’ve built on top of her.

That’s the erosion I’m talking about.

Not losing yourself in some dramatic existential collapse or a midlife crisis. It’s something much quieter.

It happens in a way you don’t even realize and it look likes this: You become a little less certain about which product to buy. So you explore more options, compare items or places, and review everyone else’s Reddit comments. Because God forbid we don’t exhaust every possibility.

You might consider this being informed. I certainly did and still do. But eventually, the line between inspiration and influence becomes difficult to see.

This is especially ironic for me. I created an entire publication around preference.

The Preferred Edit is a place for everything I love, everything I prefer, the things that work for me, the places that inspire me and the beautiful details that bring me joy.

Preferred is the whole point.

Which might be why I’m paying so much attention to this now. Knowing what I prefer matters to me.

I think I’ve spent the last few years believing that choosing myself was the work. I’ve written about it. I’ve practiced it. In many ways, I’ve rebuilt my life around it. Particularly after my late husband died and reinvention was my only choice.

But I’m beginning to understand there is another piece.

You can choose yourself and still not be choosing for yourself.

Those are different. And it’s taken me time to grasp that notion.

Choosing yourself is agency. Choosing for yourself is discernment.

And maybe discernment is simply knowing yourself well enough to take in everything the world has to offer without assuming you need to absorb all of it.

Now, do I still stand behind everything I have shared? Yes, 100%. But trust me when I say, discernment is becoming the new muscle to flex, one that doesn’t require creatine and extra protein, because that certainly falls in the realm of influence these days.

Maybe the question isn’t whether something influenced me. Of course it did.

Maybe the question is much simpler:

Would I choose the green dress again? Yes.

And the irony is, it was one of the very first ones I saved in my quest for the dress.

My intuition was right. I just became distracted by everything else.

I hate to admit it, but this happens more often than not. And sometimes the consequences are far greater than arriving in town without a dress in hand.

The same thing happened again recently when I was planning yet another trip, another bucket-list one.

At every turn, I seemed to come across another roadblock. Somewhere along the way, I said to my husband, “I feel like I’m trying to put a square peg into a round hole. The universe is trying to tell me this is not the right time.”

But I persevered. I made the plans and put the deposit down, only to realize just this week that there is, in fact, a roadblock. And this one I can’t work around.

My intuition was right. Again.

But I was so clouded by the possibility of an extraordinary trip. I fell in love with each glossy image, every review, and the one that seems to get me every time: the scarcity mentality that if I don’t do it now, there will be no more rooms, no more flights and no way to get there.

I don’t think I’ve lost touch with my intuition at all. If anything, these two experiences tell me the opposite.

I think the outside world has gotten really good at what it does.

Influencers know how to influence. Marketing companies know how to market. AI knows how to press our hot buttons. Someone is always listening in, whether we want them to or not.

And that’s the slow drip.

This isn’t me battling against modern-day technology. It’s the realization of what I’ve given up along the way.

I know there are people who can stand firmly grounded in their own decisions and their own intuition. But I also think there’s a leak happening for all of us, whether we realize it or not.

I’m not here to stand on a soapbox. I’m just here to say, wow. I see it. It’s happening. It’s real.

And I’m going to reclaim what I can, where I can and how I can.

Because agency and choice arrived as scarcity for me growing up. Maybe that’s why realizing how casually I’ve given pieces of both away now hits differently.

At first I thought this was about control, because that is how I’m hardwired. I’m a Capricorn, after all. We like to be the ones standing at the helm with a clipboard in hand.

But this isn’t about control. It’s about returning to self.

And not the controlling self that needs to dictate every turn. I’m talking about the self that sits at the seat of my soul. The place where my intuition is grounded.

That part of me. The one that asks, what still feels like me? What am I pursuing because I genuinely want it versus what am I pursuing because I’ve seen it enough times to believe I should?

I consider what gives me energy. What makes me curious. What makes me feel most comfortable in my own skin.

Those questions feel different from the ones I’ve been asking, and they take me back to one of my earliest articles, The Cost of a Borrowed Identity, where I explore what it looks like to make authentic choices.

Since coming home, I’ve been craving stillness in a way I haven’t in a long time.

I notice I’m clicking less and integrating more. I’m noticing more and consuming less. I think my UPS man would agree. He’s probably wondering what happened to me.

I also find myself wondering less about what I should do next and paying more attention to what I actually want next.

I’m tired of giving my agency away, piece by piece and click by click.

And what bothers the controlling part of me the most is realizing how often I’ve done this without knowing I was doing it.

This isn’t about wanting a life without influence or a world without technology.

I want to hear it all, and I certainly want the ease every device offers. I just want my own intuition to have the final vote.

The dress stays.

It turns out it’s a good one.

Always EDITing,
Leslie

Please tell me I am not the only one who feels this slow drip of self. I would love to know your thoughts.

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A few of my latest articles — this is me learning embracing self promotion.

Substack feels like a safe space to share freely. But it comes with one of the things I don’t love about social media. The “like” factor. And let’s be real, Substack offers that dopamine kick that feeds human nature, the desire to feel accepted. And if we are being really honest, it has become another social media app. Of course, with it comes the critics too, who leave with the same simple click. It removes them from your list, and it removes you from their world. Both are occurring at the same time.

Getting comfortable with all of that is its own work. Because the triumph of a new subscriber hits just as hard as an unsubscribe hits later. Sometimes the unsubscribe lands with an even bigger punch to the gut, particularly if it’s someone I know personally.

As someone who didn’t arrive with a following of any kind, an email list I could upload from another platform, or relationships that would help catapult my growth, my trajectory is being built one article and note at a time. Trust me when I say, I celebrate each milestone along the way. I also completely cherish each subscriber. When a new one lands, there is a sense of validation of time, energy, authorship, and creativity that leaves me feeling proud and excited.

And while I love, in every sense of the word, the people in my life who read my work, I don’t expect it to land with everyone. Sometimes, I’ll be honest, it feels easier to have people I don’t know read my work than the people closest to me. Or the ones on the periphery.

I’ve read notes other people have published where they openly acknowledge having created an account and developed a Substack community without a single person in their world knowing anything about that. To those of you who’ve done that, I get you.

I usually don’t share my articles with anyone until they’re fully baked. I’m a perfectionist, after all.

But in this instance, I read this one to my husband, Dave, in draft form. He’s the one set of eyes, if not my daughter Elise, who gets a preview before I hit publish. They are my two trusted editors, and the stopgap before I send it off for the world to digest.

And when I read him this draft, he offered something interesting.

He said you’re not writing the old-world way, if we can call it that. Long before writing on social platforms became a thing, feedback came in one of two ways. From the professional critics who wrote about the work themselves, and from the sales that drove the numbers. On Substack, the feedback is immediate, and the critic is anyone and everyone.

And this new world requires one of two things. A thicker skin, and the ability to not get caught up in the statistics or the comments. Or complete anonymity, which is nearly impossible to come by, certainly with respect to writing personal essays. (If you’re among the other enviable type who has the uncanny ability to turn the other way, I applaud you.)

My husband said something else I also thought was interesting. When he reads an author, he doesn’t give up on them just because he didn’t love one thing they published. He used Grisham as an example. He’s loved so many of his books, even if a few of the early ones didn’t hit hard. But it never occurred to him to abandon Grisham as an author entirely. Back then, that idea barely existed. On Substack, it’s different.

If an article doesn’t resonate or the author doesn’t vibe, the option is simple. Unsubscribe. As the author yourself, that simple gesture can feel extremely personal, particularly when the content is just that, personal.

There is also another entanglement that comes with writing personal content, one that requires a different kind of finesse, and one that I think is worth sharing.

I’ve been on Substack for nine months now and have 69 articles published, a number that’s not lost on me. It’s my late husband’s angel number, and when it shows up, I am always reminded he is here for me. As it turns out, his passing and the grief that I’ve learned to live with are among many of the topics I have written about and will continue to share.

My life is my source material, after all. My experiences don’t exist in a vacuum. They exist in connection and relationship to other people. But I recognize the responsibility that comes with writing this type of nonfiction. There are other people to consider. People I love, people I respect, and people I want to protect.

And when I share an experience, I inevitably take into account how, where, and in what capacity the other people involved land on the page.

This is where I struggle, and I suspect it’s where others struggle too. It’s also why I developed these guideposts.

If you know of someone hanging from the tightrope while writing personal essays, feel free to share this article with others. No one deserves to be left holding on for dear life.

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What it really boils down to is how much is too much and how little is too little. If my goal is to extract meaning from my experience, how much detail do I need to share? And if I withhold too much, have I stripped the story of the very thing that made it interesting or worth sharing? I also recognize that readers respond to real experience. It’s what makes stories relatable and shareable.

This is where the silent critic often takes a seat on my shoulder. And if I’m not careful, I start writing for that voice instead of for the person who might actually need to read what I have to say.

The private part of me gets to say, Wow, I can’t believe these things have fucking happened to me (or for me).

And then the writer part of me gets to ask, Wow, what did this teach me about being human?

Both of those voices are mine.

They just don’t need the same audience.

If you’re new here, welcome. I’m Leslie.

My résumé points to a life of success, but what I really want to be remembered for is helping others across the finish line, offering guidance when it’s needed, and being the person who lowers everyone’s cortisol.

I like the finer things in life and love sharing them. I also know hardship, loss and grief. Expect a full dose of it all here. The beautiful, the difficult, the ridiculous, a bit of humor and everything in between.

Join me. I’d love to have you.

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Unless you’re writing technical content, this tightrope doesn’t exist. But I suspect a lot of people on this platform are coming in as nonfiction writers. Using their personal experiences as their muse, so to speak.

I think most personal essayists have experienced that feeling of am I oversharing, or did I share something I shouldn’t have. Or maybe just shared something they wish they hadn’t.

And that’s where I think the threat to writers begins.

When those voices become louder than our own thoughts.

When other people become the editor without ever entering the room.

When you’re writing around your experience in fear of that one critic in the corner.

As a personal essayist or creative nonfiction writer, your life is the source material. The experiences each of us endure leave a mark. They leave a fingerprint.

And maybe the editorial discipline is learning to write about the mark without necessarily revealing the fingerprint.

What it’s like to be destabilized in life, not who destabilized you.

To want to make shifts.

To learn to let go.

To be hurt.

To change your mind.

To realize something about yourself you couldn’t have known without living through the experience first.

The reader doesn’t need every detail. Quite frankly, some of those details would read like a TMZ article, and I can assure you I have no interest in writing that.

What I am interested in is what came out of it. That’s the heart of who I am. Curious. Always wanting to learn more about myself.

Because I lived the experience, and in some instances, I paid whatever price came with it. That holds true for all of us. Whether we paid a price or benefitted from it, there’s value in it. And perhaps not just for me. If I can take what I learned from it and turn it into something that makes another person feel understood, or maybe helps them see something happening in their own life a little differently, then perhaps that’s the part worth sharing.

For me, that’s where the best writing exists and what brings me back to the keyboard.

The discipline is what keeps me steady when the critic is anyone and everyone, and the exit is one simple click.

Rather than looking at the shadow on my shoulder as a critic, I’m using it as fuel instead. Fuel to get me across the tightrope with a little more grace, a little more elegance, and a whole lot more informed.

That’s the tightrope. I plan to keep walking it, and I plan to keep learning from it.

I didn’t arrive here having any true understanding of the craft of writing, and I have learned a tremendous amount along the way. I can’t profess to be an expert and am only now just owning the title of writer, essayist, author, all of which still feel awkward to own.

What I do know is that the critic isn’t going anywhere. Neither am I.

Writing from your own life experience doesn’t mean you need to air all your dirty laundry or anyone else’s for that matter. It’s about knowing where the line is.

If you’re writing personal essays, or considering it for yourself, here are a few guideposts I’ve learned to lean on over the last 69 articles that get me across that tightrope.

1. Is the story mine to tell?

I feel like this question is where that tightrope begins. Because if I’m writing about my life, there are obviously other people in it who shape my experiences.

The answer to this one isn’t always perfect. But I have learned that I can tell you what an experience did to me without telling you everything that happened. I can share details without sharing other people’s details. Maybe that’s the line. What did I feel? What did I learn? What changed because of it? Or more importantly, what part of me changed because of it? That’s the part of the story that belongs to me, and that’s where I have to write it from.

2. What does this article offer someone else?

I am not a niche author. My articles jump across all sorts of topics. What I publish usually comes down to what’s occurring in my world at any given time. But my intention is always to leave the reader with something.

There are plenty of articles to read on Substack, so I take seriously the question of what I can offer in exchange for someone’s time. Maybe it’s insight into something or someplace new. A reason to look at something in their own life a little differently. A new way of doing or trying something. Hell, sometimes it’s even a new pair of shoes I found and love.

Ultimately, I recognize and honor that people have a finite amount of time to read. What am I offering them in exchange for some of their most precious asset?

That question stays at the forefront of my mind as I hit the keys.

3. Does the reader need the detail, or do I need the reader to know it?

This one is hard to reckon with because, let’s be honest, details make a story better. They add texture, color, and sometimes that edge-of-the-seat feeling that puts you right there with the author. It’s the balance between exteriority and interiority, and the part of writing I am just learning about thanks to my incredible writing coach, . As I mentioned, I’m new to this craft and beyond grateful to those offering me both feedback and guidance.

But just because a detail makes the story better doesn’t mean it belongs in the story. That’s the part I’m learning.

Sometimes I have to ask why I want you to know it so badly. If it’s to prove I was right, or wronged, or justified, that’s not for the story, and I need to hit delete, which never feels easy.

I may still write the version where I get to say, You would not fucking believe what happened.

You just might never get to read it.

But if there’s something in the experience worth sharing, and a way to tell it without overexposing my world or someone else’s, you’ll probably find it in your inbox on one of my publishing days. I can assure you of that.

4. Am I writing from reflection or reaction?

While I have 69 published articles to date, there are countless others sitting in a folder behind the scenes that will likely remain unpublished for this very reason. If I look back at them now, I am sure today’s version of me is really glad they didn’t find their way out into the world.

There is nothing wrong with reactionary writing. That is what the unpublished folder and my journal are for. I believe in the power of putting pen to paper and letting it rip. It’s deeply therapeutic.

But reactionary publishing can become a forest fire of its own making.

This is where that extra set of eyes or editorial voice of reason becomes really important. Sometimes it’s necessary to let someone else vet the landing before a hard launch.

5. Do I stand behind what I wrote?

Sure, virality and likability are at the forefront of writing (for some anyway). But the real question is whether I can stand behind what I publish.

People are allowed to dislike what I write, and they are certainly allowed to interpret it differently than I intended. It’s almost inevitable. We all arrive with our own perspectives and no two will ever be the same. I can’t edit around every possible interpretation.

But I can ask myself whether I’ve written something I’m willing to stand behind.

And if the answer is yes, maybe that has to be enough. Because once it’s out there, it will always be out there. I don’t take that lightly before I hit publish.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

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I just left four extraordinary days behind me, and what lies ahead is a celebration of life for a remarkable man, and father to a family I consider my own.

It’s like being at the intersection of friendship and loss, something I am acutely familiar with.

This whole trip started when one of my dearest friends asked me to join her at her home in Kiawah, in the low country near Charleston, where she was scheduled for a board meeting. Inside the trip she booked us one night at the most extraordinary inn I have ever experienced, in the heart of old Charleston.

It’s the kind of place very few people have access to and very few people know about. What a gift to be on the periphery of her knowing. It is the kind of place where everything is handled before you know it needs handling. Where every detail feels deliberate and every cupboard intentionally seems to hold a surprise worth finding. Down to no news outlets permitted on the television in the shared common space and an entire freezer full of Jeni’s ice cream with a loaded toppings bar on the center island. My nervous system said its own quiet thank you for both.

OMG and the pillows! They were so good I joked about taking one home. I felt like I slept on a cloud with my head surrounded by fluffy marshmallows.

Apparently I wasn’t the first to notice, as there was a book on the nightstand listing where everything in the room came from, which is how I found out my head had been sleeping on an $850 pillow. Seriously! I had no idea pillows could be so expensive. Despite the rule breaker in me, it did not come home in my suitcase.

As if sleeping like a queen wasn’t dreamy enough, we awoke to the fluffiest scrambled eggs I’ve ever eaten and enjoyed them on a porch built for the equivalent of royalty back in the day.

I’ve never felt more taken care of.

It was 24 hours of no worry. No obligation. And no sense of duty or responsibility.

And those days don’t exist quite like they used to for me.

The last several years I have been quietly rebuilding my foundation, one that crumbled out from under me like an earthquake and left me holding the bag of responsibility and obligation that once rested in the very capable hands of my late husband.

As if that loss wasn’t enough, then it happened again. Shortly after losing George to a spontaneous brain bleed, my dearest friend Todd, and daily lifeline, had a stroke that took him before we ever got to celebrate his 60th, a night that would have undoubtedly arrived with drag queens, dueling pianos, loads of champagne, and laughter carried out for days.

Loss like that, in addition to the unraveling of other friendships in the wake of rebuilding my life, doesn’t arrive without completely hijacking the nervous system. As someone with a deep need to control the outcome of life, unexpected arrives like a cannonball to the gut.

I have done the work. Mentally, emotionally, physically, through each of those respective losses.

My sympathetic nervous system is still walking the high wire.

I honestly thought I’d see a notable difference in my diagnostic testing, something I deeply believe in and am grateful to understand, thanks to my time at both Chenot and SHA Mexico.

I still have work to do.

As it turns out, physical stress doesn’t yield just because the threat is gone. Or the friendship wound has closed. Or enough time has passed that the loss is a reminder of the past rather than a deep cut.

That’s the hardest part to swallow.

The body takes longer than the mind to play catch up. It keeps its own record, and the nervous system needs nurturing, so it stops living in anticipation of the next crash.

It wasn’t until this afternoon, in conversation with my girlfriend while en route to the airport, that I realized how far I’ve come. We found ourselves deep into another conversation, much like the ones that had filled the last few days. Time with a dear friend is like that. You pick up exactly where you left off and then spend inseparable days together where the conversation never ends and the quiet stretches don’t need filling. Where you’re both anxious to hear and to share every detail between now and then that requires rehashing.

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That’s what we were doing. Rehashing. And somewhere in it, I heard myself listing things I had been meaning to share with her. Things that I have implemented that I know she would benefit from too.

In the absence of my late husband, and the team of people who worked closely with him, there were things I left exposed.

That’s the part I don’t love admitting. I was a banker. A professional woman who understood exactly how this works.

And I handed it to someone else. I don’t think I am alone here. A lot of other women out there hand off those responsibilities in the same way. We prioritize roles and duties that balance out the household ecosystem. My late husband dutifully would enroll me in all the conversations but mentally my attention was elsewhere, and I left the load for him to carry until suddenly he wasn’t there to carry it anymore.

I needed to regain a solid foothold on everything and quickly. As the one solely responsible for holding the bag, I found small ways to add in a layer of protection that leaves me able to sleep at night, $850 pillow or not.

Because let’s be real, exposure of a personal and financial nature, especially in this day and age, is basically like standing on a street corner naked. The idea of that will wreak havoc on the nervous system on any level. My nervous system didn’t need any additional hits of voltage.

Over time, I adopted new tools and systems.

That’s what all of these are. Not productivity but protection and privacy. While they initially took time to implement, they’re so integrated now that they run on autopilot. I nearly forgot the value they carry until I found myself rehashing them with my girlfriend.

Here’s the thing. Whether you’ve experienced loss like mine or not, taking the driver’s seat feels damn good.

Loss stripped away my sense of security. The feeling of being looked after by someone whose job it was to think of it before I did.

I spent one night in a place where a stranger had anticipated every need I had, and a few I didn’t know I had, and I slept like a person without a care in the world. Floating on a cloud.

You can pay for that for a night, but that’s usually as long as it lasts.

Instead of chasing that sense of peace, I quietly, and mostly without noticing, built it over the last several years through small decisions I never thought of as recovery until now. Until I shared them with her, when there was a moment of both pride and ownership.

While my body hasn’t caught all the way up, it doesn’t have to today.

So here’s the list. Perhaps there’s one in here for you to grab hold of as well. While I cannot offer you a deluxe pillow, I can share what allows me to sleep at night.

Dashlane. A password keeper. I have reached the point where there are simply too many passwords, passkeys, account numbers and logins for my brain to be the storage system. And to be honest, for years I used the same exact password for everything. I know… yikes. Dashlane has become that extra layer of protection and a safe place to store everything. I no longer go through the brain drain of resetting passwords with each click I make.

DeleteMe. Keeps my privacy in check. This one was eye-opening. Google search your name. You may find yourself alarmed at how much personal information exists out there. DeleteMe literally does that. I discovered my information was sitting in places I didn’t even know existed, which was basically all over the wild worldwide web. I don’t need strangers being able to assemble a dossier on me with three clicks and a Google search. DeleteMe works on my behalf without effort on my end. Exhale.

A credit freeze with all three reporting agencies. This is one of those things I wish someone had told me to do years ago. I keep my credit frozen unless I actually need someone to access it. It doesn’t hurt your credit score, and you can temporarily “thaw” it online if needed. It takes the worry away about someone doing nefarious things in my name. It’s not protection against every kind of identity theft, but it puts a substantial barrier between my identity and someone trying to open a credit card with it and having their own Pretty Woman shopping extravaganza.

1440. News that keeps me informed without derailing me. I want to know what’s happening in the world. I don’t want what’s happening in the world to hijack my nervous system before I’ve finished my first cup of matcha. 1440 delivers a fact-driven email daily that keeps me informed without spending my day marinating in the news or figuring out what’s real.

Superhuman Mail. My attempt to make email less overwhelming. I’m still learning to integrate this one, but I’m intrigued by the possibility. Email can send me spiraling or, worse, leave me in paralysis because I get inundated with it daily. Superhuman helps organize it all and more.

I have a trip coming up that will leave me completely out of pocket for seven days. Yes, that freaks me out. My hope is that Superhuman becomes less another app I have to manage and more the thing that makes reentry and everyday email more manageable. Ask me after the trip. I’ll let you know when that is later!

NuCalm. This app truly allows me to sleep at night. This one came home with me from Chenot in Switzerland. They use NuCalm as part of their neuro-acoustic treatments, and I’ve come to rely on the 8-hour DeepestSleep setting. In particular, Dave and I both love the Summer Nights program that sounds like sleeping under the stars with crickets chirping. In short, it uses engineered sound to shift your brain out of stress, which I clearly need.

Privacy screen protectors for my iPhone and laptop. This might be the least sophisticated item on the list and one of the most practical. This is my 16th trip this year. I’ve had my phone, laptop, and iPad open in airport lounges, middle seats, and packed airport trams across the globe where I’m squeezed against strangers.

While a privacy screen isn’t cybersecurity, it does dramatically limit what someone sitting beside you can see. Because who wants the guy in 14B reading along as you text a friend. Not me.

That last one I almost forgot entirely until I was reminded to send my girlfriend the link.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. – No girls trip goes without a good shopping day and Charleston is no exception. More on my fun finds in the coming days including the last-minute funeral attire I picked up en route to the airport this morning and fully plan to wear again.

P.P.S. – For those with a little extra fun money to burn, here is the link to the pillows. If you do in fact buy one, please let me know. I will be dreaming about them for a long time to come. All other comments are welcome too. Always!

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More from my time at Chenot Switzerland and SHA Mexico plus a few takeaways…

But here I sit. In the eye of it.

It’s not an unfamiliar storm. But it’s new in an entirely different way. And I think a lot of women are sitting in some version of it right now.

I left my daughter thousands of miles away at college.

We said goodbye again last night, and I boarded a plane this morning. The internal turmoil didn’t settle until mid-morning, once the 4:30 AM wake-up wore off and I was left clear-eyed, caffeinated, and hungover from heartache.

Nothing forces you to sit with emotions quite like a three-and-a-half-hour cross-country flight with intermittent Wi-Fi and a window seat you can’t quite climb out of without waking the two sleeping strangers to your left.

To be fair, one of them was my husband, but he was peacefully asleep and waking him felt unfair since I was the one who booked the flight.

So I sat there, forlorn, staring at the blank black screen on the back of the seat in front of me. It felt ominous as I started wondering how I’m going to make sense of the next several decades of my own life.

How am I going to light up my own screen, if you will?

I wasn’t sure whether to cry, throw my hands up, or pull my hair out in agony. Like I said, I am in the middle of the shit storm.

And the funny thing is, it’s not like I didn’t see it coming.

The label feels opportunistic, but calling myself an empty nester just feels depressing.

Am I seriously that old? Do I really own that title now, too? Growing up, that was always reserved for “old people” with short grey hair set weekly by a hairdresser. Mine is still long and blonde… with a little help, but that’s just semantics.

Honestly, I think my AARP card is going to arrive faster than my daughter is going to return.

She won’t be home again until Thanksgiving. As if that week isn’t short enough, she’ll likely split it between a few days in Naples and time in Ohio with high school friends and family.

Christmas will likely look the same with an added few days.

After that she’s off and running from graduation straight into her graduate program, and the beginning of her future, where time off becomes the luxury someone else grants you, on their calendar and under their restrictions.

There will be no more long summers spent doing nothing and everything. And no more family trips set around our availability. Now we’ll ride on whatever she can squeeze in.

So yeah, it feels like the beginning of the end.

I know I am not the only one in the midst of this existential crisis. Take one look at social media and you’ll find middle-aged menopausal women openly crying or celebrating this new stage of life. Trust me, you’ll see it all.

Some women exhale as if they’ve been holding it all in until the silence permitted a new kind of freedom. One that allows them to finally take the romantic trip they’d been putting off. The closet edit that frees them of the high school sweatshirts and jerseys that had become the Friday night uniform for the last four years, or the pantry clean-out decades in the making that ends with the loud thud of the crockpot hitting the bottom of the garbage bin. And days divided between the tennis court, pickleball court or golf course.

Some just carry on. The corporate world doesn’t stop for a college drop-off. Life keeps moving just with one or two fewer people at the table.

Some keep busy. Like, superhumanly busy. Globetrotting around with friends and other couples. Meeting at tailgates across the country. Filling the calendar with as many social events as their college-aged kids.

Some trade the kid for an aging parent, and the whole thing quietly recycles.

None of that is me. Well, some of it was. But honestly, it was only temporary filler. Because even busy and travel can start to feel mundane.

Where I am now is more in the holy-shit-what’s-my-purpose stage.

I know reinvention. I’ve been living it for three-plus years. When my late husband passed away reinvention wasn’t an option. It was simply my life dictated by a spontaneous brain bleed that arrived on a fateful Wednesday morning before the coffee even found the mug.

One day I was teaching yoga in a studio I built and operated, training for a marathon, and working with a team of architects, designers and contractors on our dream home in Northern Michigan.

Weeks later I was selling homes, relocating myself, my belongings, my life, and my daughter’s. None of it was the grand plan until suddenly it was.

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Finding love in the middle of all of it was reinvention on a whole different level. Equally surprising but a surprise I like to think of as a higher power working in my favor… finally.

But so much of that reinvention was reactive.

Something changed, and I had to change with it.

Not the love, of course, but everything else.

This reinvention is different. This one feels personal. It’s not being forced. There is no realtor or advisor or doctor or psychic who can guide me through. I have to figure out what I actually want… for me.

And while 52 is oldish, sure, it’s far from over.

Writing found me last year, somewhere near the peak of my reinvention climb. Right before I said, “I do.” And it’s taken me somewhere I never planned to go, and I’m here for all of it.

But I’ve experienced something since I’ve started. Not everyone takes the second chapter seriously. And trust me, I’ve felt it.

People have come and gone these past six months. Friends who have whittled my writing down to “social media therapy.” Really? And more importantly, why the dig? From my side, why not?

Why shouldn’t someone start writing at 52? Or start a new company at 55? Take up painting at 60? Go back to school at 65? Hell, I saw someone on Substack announce they finished med school at 70!

And yet, we only seem to clap for reinvention if it goes big. After someone becomes the next Mel Robbins. In all fairness, Substack did a grand job of celebrating the med school grad. But the rest of the world seems to be waiting for the book to sell, and the business to skyrocket before there is a collective buy-in that it is worthy of pom-poms.

As if the trying isn’t the part worth celebrating. Why can’t we celebrate anyone who wants to try something new at this stage of life? Or any stage of life?

Because if we’re honest, the odds are better now. Not worse.

We’re more mature. We know our strengths, our weaknesses, who we generally are, and more importantly, who we aren’t.

Nobody reinvents from a more informed place than a woman who’s already survived one full remaking. And I’ve had more than one in the last half century.

So no, this isn’t the sad version of the empty-nest story. It’s the argument for what comes next.

I’m still in the eye of it, and I don’t have the answer yet.

I’m allowed to want one. One more big grand reinvention. Dare I say maybe even two.

So if you’re out there wondering the same, I say go for it. New careers, passions, and paths aren’t just reserved for the youth.

Who’s to say you won’t be the next big thing in your arena.

And who’s to say I won’t be, too.

Always EDITing,
Leslie

P.S. I am curious, if life afforded you one more chapter, what would it be? Aim high. There are no boundaries in here. Honestly, I would love a stint as a CIA agent. I’d be damn good at it. But this is my home, and it seems to have found me. So I’ll retire that notion and write as though I am looking for a different kind of agent.

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Twenty-four hours before her first day, she was exactly who she’d been for the previous three years in Malibu, beachy blonde waves, jean shorts, tank tops, and flip-flops. If you’ve spent any time here, you know “formal” in Malibu means maybe tucking in a shirttail. If you even have one. A day later, she was commuting from Washington, D.C. into McLean each morning in a black blazer, tailored trousers, and heels.

Well. Sort of.

The heels weren’t actually on her feet. They were tucked inside her designer tote next to her lunch bag, hidden beneath the polished exterior alongside the tennis shoes she wore on the Metro every morning and changed out of once she got to the office.

Her own Tess McGill, Working Girl moment.

My husband had given her that lunch bag for her birthday before she left for D.C. Talk about full circle. Long gone are the days of the monogrammed Pottery Barn Kids lunchbox and the matching backpack that looked almost as big as her little body. Today it’s a sleek neoprene lunch bag tucked inside a designer tote.

The contents, though, have barely changed.

Turkey. Sliced strawberries. Cucumbers. Crackers. And two Hershey’s Kisses.

Some things don’t change, even at twenty-one.

Her internship has since come to an end. The blazers are packed away, and she’s back in Malibu getting ready for her senior year in college. Which means that, like so many families this time of year, we’re preparing for another beginning.

Depending on where you are in the world right now, there’s an anticipatory feeling in the air. Excitement laced with apprehension, a thread of insecurity underneath it all. It’s back-to-school season in the States. And for some, it isn’t just back to school. It marks the start of a major life pivot. The first day of a professional career, or in my daughter Elise’s case, the beginning of the end. The countdown toward college graduation and the next chapter. We’ve been slowly preparing since late last spring.

The truth is, everyone’s mostly just figuring it out. Part of it is playing a role. A little fake it till you make it. You dress the part. But in your own way.

As parents, we spend years preparing our kids for these moments. We teach them to drive. We help them choose colleges. We talk about careers, and we remind them to be kind, to work hard, to say thank you. What I didn’t expect was that one of the biggest confidence builders would come from something as simple as getting dressed.

I’ll be honest, and sorry, Elise, my budding career gal doesn’t see what her closet holds with the same eye I do. So there was work to do. Not to buy her a whole new wardrobe, but to train her eye, to build from what she already had and assemble it each day for a successful professional summer. Because being the new kid in the cubicle isn’t easy. Neither is walking onto a college or high school campus feeling like you don’t look the part.

And trust me, this isn’t about how to fit in. It’s about how to feel confident upon arrival, whatever your vibe is.

We often joke in our house that the umbilical cord is still attached. And I’m beyond grateful for the relationship I have with my daughter. It’s not one I have with my own mother. That one is complicated, and she’s been absent for much of my life. Having a close relationship with Elise is the greatest gift.

And if I’m being honest with myself, I’m sure I go the extra mile to be the mother for her that I longed for in my own life, which undoubtedly means doing too much for her sometimes. She lets me know when I’m overstepping, and I’m also learning to let go. It’s not an easy thing to do.

I always say the biggest job as a parent is to raise independent children. Letting them take the wheel is the double-edged sword we have to learn to carry. And this summer, between my travel schedule and my desire to see her take charge, we needed a plan. One that didn’t have her calling me every night, or in the middle of a wardrobe crisis: WHAT DO I WEAR TODAY? It was imperative for both of us. So we built a plan. And here’s how we did it.

It started with a lesson I’d learned thirty years earlier, from a magazine.

Long before Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok, or any wardrobe app, there was one feature I looked forward to every single month inside InStyle. It was called Instant Style. If you’re old enough to remember those pages inside that 100-page glossy rag, you probably just smiled. They were always some of my favorite pages, and the recreations of them floating around social now still make me pause.

Those pages fascinated me. Not because they featured expensive clothes, and not because they told me what was fashionable. Because they showed me possibilities. One blazer, three outfits, a handful of basics mixed together in ways I never would have thought of on my own.

Looking back, I don’t think they were really teaching style. They were teaching perspective. That a great wardrobe was never about owning more. It was about seeing what you already owned differently.

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Thirty years later, I found myself trying to teach Elise the very same lesson. Not because I wanted her to become someone she wasn’t. Quite the opposite. I wanted her to walk into that office feeling like herself. Confident, prepared, able to spend her mental energy on the work instead of on whether she’d chosen the right outfit.

That’s when I introduced her to an app called Stylebook. Instead of standing in front of her closet every morning trying to remember what she owned, she photographed every piece, organized it by category, and started building outfits in advance. She could mix and match what she already had, plan a whole week in a few minutes, and pack for a trip without leaving half her wardrobe behind.

And somewhere in there, she stopped saying she had nothing to wear. Because for the first time, she could see everything she already owned.

Then something funny happened. She showed it to her stepsister. Her stepsister showed a few friends. Those friends showed other friends. Now there’s a whole group of college students and young professionals using it, each for their own reason: planning internships, getting through sorority recruitment, avoiding the overpacked suitcase, or just rediscovering clothes they forgot they owned.

Watching it spread reminded me of those old Instant Style pages. The technology changed. The lesson didn’t.

Confidence rarely comes from having more. More clothes. More shoes. More options. More often, it comes from removing unnecessary decisions.

Because the first day of school is stressful enough. The first internship is stressful enough. The first job is stressful enough. If fifteen minutes on a Sunday means you get to spend Monday morning thinking about your work instead of your wardrobe, that’s a pretty good return.

Clothes don’t determine your worth. They don’t make you smarter, or kinder, or more capable. But they can remove one unnecessary distraction. And sometimes that’s exactly what confidence looks like.

As for Elise, the internship is over. The blazers are back in the closet. The tennis shoes have reclaimed their rightful place. And somewhere inside a designer tote sits a sleek little lunch bag carrying turkey, strawberries, cucumbers, crackers…

…and two Hershey’s Kisses.

Apparently some things are worth keeping exactly the same.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

I love reading your comments. Drop me one or leave your own Instant Style hack.

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P.S. I'm getting ready to leave Malibu. This is always the hard part. Goodbyes never get easier. Being an empty nester is a whole nother article, one I plan to tackle on my flight home. Tears and all.

Of course it was. It was Mexico in July, and I was seated inside a sweat lodge.

A new offering on the menu. The photo in the brochure made it look peaceful and traditional. Stepping into a Mayan ritual seemed like a brilliant idea, a way to embrace my quest for wellness in a truly cultural way while staying at a longevity clinic in Mexico. I naively did no research. Turns out that was a good thing, because the Condé Nast article I read after the fact would have sent me packing.

And I didn’t just sign myself up. I enrolled my daughter, too, who looked at me afterward and said, that was the wildest thing you’ve ever asked me to do.

A beautiful Mayan shaman greeted us. (I’ll be honest, I’m not sure that’s the right word for a woman who serves as a ceremonial guide in the Mayan tradition, but it’s the one I have.) She was knowledgeable and calming. We both felt reassured as we were saged, welcomed, and led inside the Temazcal.

As the volcanic rocks were placed in the firepit and the temperature began to climb, she asked us to consider what we were seeking.

I said peace.

I had no idea those two hours were about to expose something I had spent my entire life trying to outrun.

But to explain that, I need to back up.

I’m writing this en route home from SHA Wellness — my second stay in two years. Last year, my daughter, two friends and I arrived fully immersed in one of their seven-day detox programs. This year, with only a few calendar days to spare, we opted for a shorter stay, one we could design ourselves, catered to our own desires and outcomes. A program they call Stay Your Way. We signed up.

Four days to unwind after the whirlwind summer I’d set in motion. My priority was singular: relaxation. Four full days of living in a bathrobe, leaning into rest, ironing out a nervous system still recovering from cross-continent trips and, more honestly, from years of stress and trauma.

It sounds luxurious. It is. Don’t get me wrong.

But it doesn’t come easily for someone who has spent a lifetime tying her worth to her productivity.

What I’m realizing, though, is that longevity, wellness, my overall well-being — this is the work. Not the thing I get to after the work, but the work itself.

And not only for me. For my daughter, too. It’s something I hope she can embrace at 21 in a way I’m only learning at 52.

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We added our own twist, of course. A glass of champagne each night before dinner. Because here’s the thing: living at full tilt isn’t the norm, and I know that when restriction hits hard, the pendulum swings back even harder. So even at a wellness clinic, there’s a place for a pop of that kind of pleasure. Trust me, they’d noted my propensity to savor bubbles right in my profile, which only makes me appreciate them more.

What I’m after, always, is balance. 80/20. A week away doesn’t need to be an extreme for the benefits to still deliver.

Here’s the fuller truth, though. I have been chasing wellness for the majority of my adult life, in some shape or form. I’ve tried, and I’m willing to try, just about anything.

I have attended countless yoga trainings. More than I can recall. Name the modality, and I likely have a certificate of completion tucked into a file marked “Yoga Teacher Training Certificates” — because of course I have that.

I’ve been on women’s retreats. Not the kind that reunite friends for a fun weekend, but the kind that led me to wellbeing and alternative treatments for aging long before Instagram existed — before TikTok made everything mainstream and viral. The kind that led to a full kitchen edit, where I forced my family to eat quinoa I’d soaked for a full day, because back then quinoa only came raw, sold at health food stores with abstract names like Claudia’s.

With a degree in East Asian Studies, I found my way to Traditional Chinese Medicine years ago, and I swear by it, for my weekly nervous system reboot and for so many other ailments I’ve battled over the years. There’s something about ancient medicine that has always held an allure for me.

Honestly, there is nothing quite like floating on the waters of the Dead Sea, basking in the mud beneath it, then scrubbing it off with the salt crystals that form along the shore. The therapeutic benefits are as mystifying as the land that surrounds it.

And then there’s therapy, of course. I believe everyone can benefit from a good therapist. It’s never easy, but exploring the past and getting to know all my internal parts has been a huge shift in how I experience life and my relationships.

As for longevity and wellness clinics, they’ve been earmarked in the Notes app on my phone for easily a decade. I was mesmerized by the first article I read and held onto it, knowing that one day I’d find my way to one. After my late husband died and my daughter left for a school year in Switzerland, I did. I booked a week at a renowned clinic near her, ended up extending my stay, and went back the following year.

And still. After all of it, and so many other things I’ve done, I’m always curious what else is out there.

Which is how my daughter got dragged into a sweat lodge with me, along with baggage I didn’t even know I was carrying.

Last year, SHA’s diagnostic testing told me my sympathetic nervous system was hardwired for threat. At the time, I assumed it was because of everything I’d lived through over the previous two years.

This year, I expected different results. Yes, life will always have its ups and downs, but I have continued to do the work. And for the first time in SO LONG, I am genuinely happy.

But the numbers hadn’t changed. If anything, they got slightly worse. My parasympathetic nervous system (the one responsible for rest and digest) is literally asleep at the wheel.

It wasn’t until I found myself sitting in the dark inside a Mayan sweat lodge that I realized why.

I’ve spent a lifetime bracing. Bracing for the floor to fall out. Bracing for something to be taken away. Bracing for the other shoe to drop.

Peace wasn’t the thing standing in my way. Bracing was.

I couldn’t access it because I was still preparing for impact.

And somewhere in that dome-shaped “house of heat,” meant to represent the womb of Mother Earth (I know, it sounds so woo-woo), amidst an indigenous ceremonial ritual, with hot water poured over volcanic rocks, steam rising with no escape, the smell of herbs and medicinal plants in the air, the rhythmic chanting all around, I broke my own glass ceiling.

What I’ve come to know is this: the subconscious is the real driver, and our own glass ceiling.

The body keeps score. And mine has been keeping a high one.

Locked in every muscle and fiber, the shadows of my subconscious have been hiding.

For years I thought I could crack mine by pushing harder. Thinking more. Reading more. Learning more. Running marathons across the globe. Scrubbing, rubbing, mud-bathing, and needling my way through all the layers.

We all have our own version of “not enough” playing on default somewhere in the depths of the brain.

But in the dark, I found a shadow bigger than that, one no masseuse in the world was going to unlock.

I went in asking for peace.

But somewhere between the sage-infused steam, the primal chanting, and the layers of sweat, trust surfaced.

The one missing piece to my puzzle. The one thing I never questioned.

And here’s the part I cringe to write: I have never held trust as a foundation. It isn’t what I was built on.

As a product of divorce, I lived a childhood of chaos and uncertainty. Things were taken from me as a parenting tactic, one likely passed down from the generation before. Somehow, through it all, I learned early on that if I couldn’t count on others, I would take care of myself. And I did. I have more grit than I know what to do with.

But trust? No.

When things get pulled away at a young age, you learn to expect it. At least I did. So I built a world I could depend on, and I controlled and organized my way through life.

But here’s the thing. That foundation doesn’t hold when the uncontrollable happens.

No clear plastic bin, however neatly labeled, can withstand an earthquake overnight.

In the last few years, I’ve had my fair share of unexpected loss. And when those things happen, big or small, the subconscious defaults to what it knows best. In my case, that’s to expect more.

Living in a body that’s always preparing for impact is no way to live. Trust me – and I say that both honestly and ironically.

My own glass ceiling wasn’t about inner peace. It was about trust.

Suddenly, those test results made sense. My nervous system wasn’t simply responding to the losses of the past few years. It was responding to a lifetime spent bracing. My body wasn’t confused. It was doing exactly what it had been taught to do.

You can’t relax your way to calm when the foundation underneath is I don’t trust this to hold.

Trust is the one thing I couldn’t train for. Couldn’t achieve. Couldn’t book at any wellness clinic in the world.

It only surfaced when I finally stopped doing.

I won’t pretend I walked out of that lodge holding it. I didn’t.

But I walked out knowing its name.

And after a lifetime of chasing, I finally know where to begin.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

Your comments fuel me. I read them all!

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P.S. As for SHA Wellness, I look forward to my return and am excited to share some cool offerings that might pique your interest as well. Stay tuned.

As for me, I have a quick 24 hours at home before I am off on yet another adventure. Life will begin to slow down for me soon. Trust me, I am ready for it too.

I never kept the phone on or even charged it. Yet, turning off the service and giving up the number that had been part of his identity for as long as cell service has been available felt more permanent than his memorial service.

His email account is still active, though. Thousands of junk emails arrive every week, and every so often I still scroll through them, just in case something important somehow finds its way there. It never does anymore, but I still look anyway.

None of those decisions came easily. And the idea that a stranger likely answers his cell phone number is something I can’t think about without feeling a pit in my stomach.

George died three years and four months ago today.

Seven months ago, I remarried.

I never imagined I would find love again after losing him. Thankfully, I married a man who doesn’t ask me to leave George behind. He understands that love doesn’t erase love. In fact, he totally embraces it, and the photos of George I keep around our house.

Besides, George has a funny way of reminding us he’s never very far away.

I had just left Volcanoes National Park, on the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and not far from Uganda, and said goodbye to the both the golden monkeys and my beloved friends and travel companions. On the walk to meet my driver, I struck up a conversation with a man from Los Angeles. We had about twenty minutes together. Aside from his wife and the porter there to guide us, we were the only ones in this remote field at the edge of the bamboo forest. Naturally, I struck up conversation.

I asked what he did. Real estate, he said. I asked what kind. Commercial. I inquired further, which sector, and mentioned my late husband had been in commercial real estate too.

That’s where we connected the dots. It turned out he’d bought a portfolio of real estate from George’s former REIT. They had never met. But he knew of him. Meanwhile I am thinking… wow, this is so random!

As we reached the parking lot, he stopped. “Can I show you something?”

He pulled out his phone, opened his contacts, and handed it to me. There it was. George’s contact information. Everything you needed to know if you were looking to reach a man as if he were still alive, including the cell phone number that is permanently etched in my mind, along with the ringtone I assigned to it, which always causes me to abruptly turn when I hear it play.

They’d never met. George died. And still, he had it.

Nearly 8,000 miles from home, after weeks spent traveling across Africa, just before beginning the thirty-six-hour journey back to my daughter, my new husband, and the life waiting for me…

There was George. Winking at me from this stranger’s iPhone screen.

I was already emotional about leaving Africa. Seeing George’s name felt like the hug I needed.

When I walked out the door in Naples weeks earlier, I looked at his photo on our kitchen counter and said, “Grab your angel’s wings. We are going on another adventure.” I should have expected that he would find a way to remind me that his love and memory have no geographical restrictions.

But to understand why I was standing in that parking lot in Rwanda in the first place, I have to go back to a woman named Aline.

The life I lived with George in Toledo bears little resemblance to the life I live today. For starters, I no longer shovel snow. Not that I did much there either, but I call Naples home now.

I no longer own the yoga studio that shaped both my days and my life for so many years, though I remain deeply connected to the community that continues to thrive there.

And I no longer spend Sunday afternoons logging into Skype. Does that even exist anymore?

That’s where this story begins. Not in Africa, but at a boutique yoga studio, on Central Avenue in a small mid-west town, that I opened twelve years ago.

Through Toledo Yoga, I became a mentor with Africa Yoga Project, an organization that paired yoga teachers in the United States with emerging teachers throughout Africa. My mentee was the only participant living in Rwanda.

Her name is Aline. We were first introduced in 2015.

At the time, she had never flown on an airplane. She had never traveled beyond Rwanda except for a thirty-hour bus ride to Nairobi, Kenya, where she attended a teacher training with my teacher, Baron Baptiste, and Paige Elenson. She left behind her job at a local bar, courageously boarded a bus by herself, and chose a path she had no idea would transform her life.

The mentorship program required a monthly Skype call. But after the first one, I knew once a month wasn’t going to be enough.

First of all, the connection was so poor we could barely hear each other. During the rainy season in Rwanda we’d lose each other entirely, and some Sundays we spent almost as much time reconnecting as talking.

Secondly, Aline was painfully shy, which is so hard to imagine now. Back then it took a lot to get her to open up. In her defense, she would say that English wasn’t her first language, although she spoke it far better than she ever gave herself credit for. But getting to know her required both time and patience. Both of which I honored and respected. The program asked a lot… of both of us, and we were both committed.

So we started meeting every Sunday. Each week, it was like meeting a different person. She didn’t just gain confidence. She began to flourish.

The woman who had once struggled to find the words to describe her own thoughts slowly became someone who spoke with clarity, conviction, and purpose.

She began teaching more classes, enrolling more students, and finding ways to support her community. She overcame (and still overcomes) cultural, political, and religious barriers in order to reach those most in need, the genocide survivors who navigate unimaginable grief.

She earned an opportunity to spend a month studying meditation in Thailand. It was her first time on an airplane. Her first time leaving the African continent.

And she kept saying yes. Yes to new opportunities. Yes to travel (which always amazed me) and yes to the transformation of her life unfolding in the most remarkable ways.

Somewhere along the way, our relationship quietly shifted. As the program came to an end, it was clear she no longer needed a mentor. If anything, I had become the student.

Over the years we stayed in touch, but meeting in person always felt unlikely. George never had any interest in traveling to Africa, and despite several attempts to bring Aline to the United States, it never aligned.

Ten years after our first Skype call, we finally had an opportunity to meet in person.

There are very few people in life with whom you can trace a decade of growth so clearly. To hug her, to laugh with her, to finally look her in the eyes instead of through a temperamental computer screen, was one of the most meaningful moments of my trip.

Today, Aline leads an organization that reaches more than 5,000 students every week in Rwanda (the number astonishes me). Not only that, she works with the United Nations to bring yoga, mindfulness, and healing into the most war-torn communities around the world, often at the very edge of the battlefields.

I still picture the young woman who nervously boarded a bus for thirty hours to attend her first training. Now she boards airplanes and walks into some of the most difficult places on earth with peace as her badge.

Ten years ago, I was helping Aline find her voice. Today, she’s helping thousands of others find theirs.

Being with her in her home country was such a gift. We had less than twenty-four hours together, which included a greeting at the airport and a short drive to our hotel, a beautiful morning at the Kigali Genocide Memorial, where Aline shared pieces of her own story and her family’s struggles during that time and beyond, a lunch inspired by local cuisine, and shopping (of course). Not the kind of shopping tourists usually imagine, but a chance to meet the remarkable women weaving beautiful baskets by hand, supporting themselves, their families, and one another through their craft.

Naturally, I came home with more than I needed and an extra bag to carry it all.

One of those baskets now sits in my favorite spot in the house, holding an orchid. Every time I walk past it, I don’t just think of Rwanda. I think of Aline. And of course there is the one she gifted me. A beautiful butterfly woven into the design. To me, it’s perfectly symbolic of her journey and her transformation.

Leaving her was harder than I expected. Not because our time together had been long. But because we’d already spent ten years building the relationship.

The hug goodbye wasn’t the end of something. It felt like the continuation of something that had begun all those years ago on Sunday afternoons over unreliable Skype calls.

Rather than goodbye, we said “Until next time.”

One of her dreams has always been to visit the United States. And I am desperately hoping we can finally make that happen.

As emotional as saying goodbye was, I never had to carry it alone. My dear friend Debi saw exactly what this reunion meant to me.

She and her husband, Pierre, along with their family, did something I’ll never forget. They invited me to join them in Rwanda. They folded me into their family as though I’d belonged there all along. They even included me in the “Gorilla Trekkers” text thread long before our departure, a thread of family musings, jabs, and photos that always made me feel part of the tribe.

Without them, none of this would have happened. I wouldn’t have been standing there, hugging Aline goodbye.

While I thought I was traveling to Rwanda to see gorillas, the truth is, I was traveling to finally meet the woman Aline had become.

And though this article seemed like it should be easy to write, I struggled, and I couldn’t figure out why.

So much happened along the way. But this last part, the finale in Rwanda, jammed into a few short days, seemed to carry the most weight.

George showed up as an encore. Aline was at the center of it all. And the gorillas? That’s what everyone asks about.

When I was scrolling through the photos looking for what I wanted to share, in hopes the words would find me, everything finally came into focus.

This trip wasn’t about wildlife. It wasn’t even about Rwanda. It was about belonging. And oddly enough, the gorillas showed me that.

Belonging has always been complicated for me. As I reflect back, though, it’s been a thread that I have unknowingly pulled through so many of my previous articles.

I’ve written about grief, about friendship (that seems to be a sticky one that will get more attention soon), family, reinvention (I am an expert at that), identity, even trends.

Underneath all of them was the same quiet question.

Where do I belong? How do I fit in?

I am a product of divorced parents. I divorced myself. I made choices outside the norm: falling in love and marrying an older man, losing him unexpectedly and my best friend a year later, and then remarrying. All those moments were filled with uncertainty and loss.

Standing in the bamboo forests of Volcanoes National Park, I was surrounded by mountain gorillas so close I could hear them tearing bamboo with their teeth. Babies tumbling over one another, playing their own version of ring around the rosy. A mother nursing another. A silverback mating. Yes, we saw that primal moment too. I wasn’t simply observing wildlife.

I was witnessing something far greater. I was witnessing belonging.

This troop of gorillas, like all others, created their own unit. Several females. A large silverback. Tons of babies, all nestled into the bamboo of the forest with an unmistakable rhythm to it all.

For primates, belonging isn’t simply comforting. It’s essential. It’s how they survive. And it’s actually how they’ve thrived (again). Once on the edge of extinction, they’ve repopulated through conservation efforts and their own natural instinct to gather and protect one another, which was a wonder to see firsthand.

So somewhere between meeting Aline, being welcomed so effortlessly into Debi and Pierre’s family, sitting among a gorilla troop that instinctively protects one another, and finding George waiting for me in the most unexpected place on earth…

I realized I’d spent the entire trip surrounded by different expressions of the very thing I’d been searching for most of my life.

Belonging.

As I finally conclude my Africa articles, I am reminded that sometimes the greatest gifts people give us aren’t extravagant at all. Sometimes they simply make space for one more.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. If you made it this far… thank you! I am grateful to share this journey with you. Next up… a return trip I am about to embark on for my health and wellbeing. One I am so excited about. Yet, another country. More to come next week.

As always, your comments fuel me.

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That was the end of Africa.

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I walked back through the village to the carpark, found my driver, and closed the door.

I’ve been home a week, and this is the first I’ve been able to write.

I want to tell you it was jet lag. Some of it was. But the truer thing is that I walked back into a life where everything has a place, where I am almost painfully organized, and I felt paralyzed.

I stood in my closet and couldn’t move.

Bags I still hadn’t unpacked. Hangers so full I couldn’t slip one more thing between them. I had just spent multiple days an arm’s length from the Big Five, in a world I never thought I’d get to stand in, and I came back to all of this and something in me wouldn’t settle.

So I didn’t force it. I took the week. I cleared my own field before I let myself write about theirs.

And now I can tell you what I discovered.

When I arrived, I fell in love. How could I not?

It was a scene out of Out of Africa. I felt like Meryl Streep among antiques and heirlooms that made the place look more like a film set than a life anyone actually gets to live. I kept waiting for Robert Redford to walk in, scotch in hand, ready for an evening of storytelling by the fire.

&Beyond Bateleur Camp had set the stage. Crystal on white linen. Leather campaign chairs at the edge of the deck, looking out over a sweeping stretch of plain with a single elephant on the horizon.

And then my room.

A tent, yes. But one with a teak door and walls papered in antique maps. A bar cart styled like Ralph Lauren himself had come to arrange it. A crystal decanter labeled SHERRY.

And a brass tub facing a wall of glass, the plain sitting right there, the first thing I’d see in the morning. On the other side of beautiful screened doors that stayed locked all night, but still let the sounds of the Mara seep in. A candle inside a large hurricane votive flickered across the ceiling. Just enough to see by if we needed to get up. Just enough, in the otherwise dark vista.

So yes, I was completely surrounded by luxury. And I own the fact that I love beautiful things.

It’s not what I came from.

I grew up often wearing the same outfit to school two days in a row, hoping no one would notice. I can distinctly remember the one. Black corduroy pants. A green cardigan sweater with a white shirt. And brown boots that were my prized possession. I loved that outfit for everything it was and hated it for everything it wasn’t.

Wearing it made me feel like I fit in. But rewearing it (out of necessity) left me standing outside the inner circle I desperately wanted to live inside. And in high school, that can do a lot to a girl’s psyche. It certainly did mine.

It’s no surprise that I’ve spent much of my adult life surrounding myself with beautiful things. It’s not that I wanted to be as far from that girl as I could get, it’s that my subconscious drove me directly toward everything she envisioned when I finally had the means to make it my own. Somewhere along the way, though, appreciation quietly became accumulation. One more sweater. Another purse or pair of shoes. Beautiful things disappearing into a closet already full of them.

I recall walking through the Ralph Lauren store in downtown Minneapolis during those formative years of my life. I was never the patron. I was the plus one to the friend whose parent was there to meet their personal shopper. Mindfully absorbing every detail. It was a world far from my own, where timeless elegance met quiet luxury. Where worn leather, soft cashmere, warm wood, and objects felt as though they’d been collected over a lifetime, each detail carrying its own story. It felt lived-in, in the most sophisticated way.

Standing in this camp, in the middle of the open plains of Kenya, felt like stepping into the world my teenage self would have dreamed up if someone had handed her an unlimited budget, assigned her a personal shopper, and told her to go big.She would have loved every inch of it.

And here’s what she never could have imagined and what I didn’t expect.

When we woke early the morning after our arrival, something inside of me began to rearrange.

Because when the coffee arrived, on the silver tray, along with the 4:30 AM wakeup call, I stopped insisting on my own preferences and allowed myself to receive what the experience offered. Admittedly though, my gut is only now catching up. But everything exciting in the Mara happens as the sun begins to climb and in the afternoon as dusk falls. Embracing both required something from me. It required a kind of surrender I’d never allowed myself. One that asked me to soften my edges and let go of what I could control.

When I stepped into a basket and lifted off the ground, hovering over the Mara in a hot air balloon, with the lens of the camera stretched as far as it would go with no end in sight, I experienced peace.

Everywhere I looked. Just peace.

And trust me, as the day carried on, and when the lion turned toward our vehicle, the adrenaline went through me like a current. But our guide just sat there. Calm. A true she-warrior, and the embodiment of fierce grace.

And the lion passed just as she knew it would.

The elephants and cheetahs did the same.

We saw it all. From near and far. The herds of animals slowly migrating from the Serengeti, where I stood directly between Tanzania and Kenya. There is something special about being able to check another country off the list by simply placing a foot over the imaginary but real dividing line.

And the kills with the vultures hovering. We experienced those too. The Mara didn’t hold back for us. We got the full show.

And still, in the middle of all of it, the elephant bull charging our vehicle and the lions mating less than ten yards away. Peace.

I loved all of it. It was everything I imagined it would be.

But what I loved most was how at ease I felt.

Yes, I came with the outfit. Curated for every part of the journey, of course. That’s me. That will always be me.

But out there, it wasn’t even needed and it wasn’t what mattered.

And maybe that’s the thing I’m only now realizing. Because arriving home and standing in my closet with hangers I could barely slip a piece of paper between, I was both as far from Africa as I could get and worlds away from the peace I felt when I was there.

Before I could even sit down to write, I had to clear my own field. And I did. I’ll continue to—not to whittle my life down to only the essentials, but to create room for beauty to be seen again. To build from the beauty I already have. Because I will always be the girl in awe in the Ralph Lauren store. But I am no longer chasing.

Africa didn’t make me love beautiful things any less. If anything, it made me appreciate them more.

It’s not lost on me that I’ve spent years trying to surround myself with beauty, only to discover I’d collected so much of it that I could no longer fully appreciate what was already there.

Africa reminded me of something I’ve overlooked.

Beauty needs space.

Space to be noticed. Space to be worn. Space to become part of your life instead of another thing tucked onto an already crowded shelf.

I’ll always love beautiful things.

I just don’t have the same need to be consumed by it anymore. And when I pack for the next safari (which is already in the making) or the next adventure, I will curate it with ease and unpack it without paralysis.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

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P.S. There is a Part Three to this series. Of course there is. I’m still unpacking that one too. It will arrive… soon.

P.P.S. These are the pieces that made the edit. The ones I’m making space for. The ones that will get repacked for the next safari and will continue to wear, rewear, and love for years to come.

Safari Essentials

Layering is the name of the game when packing for safari. It gets super dusty driving through the open plains of the Mara, and the days start really early. Hats are key, both to make for an easy morning departure and to keep the wind from tying knots in your hair. Scarves help combat the dust and keep you warm. I was so grateful for each of these pieces.

• SoldOut.NYC sweater — a great layering piece over my Zara t-shirts.

• James Perse pants — packed light and wore well.

• VEJA tennis shoes — traveled to both Ireland and Africa, and are now a mainstay in my closet.

• Miu Miu hat — a splurge, but worth it for both safari and gorilla trekking. I even shared it with my roomie, who looked darling in it.

• Rag & Bone cap — felt too appropriate not to take along plus it was on sale when I bought it.

• Velvet sarong — doubled as a skirt and a scarf, and folds to nothing when packing.

• Kujten and ASHA scarves — splurges as well, but will be worn for a lifetime.

• Warby Parker progressive reader sunglasses — I’m at the age where readers are required, and on safari, sunglasses are a must against the dust. These doubled as both my readers and my sunnies all week.

You’ve seen the reel. Set to something sweeping from The Lion King. The post that teaches you how to curate your safari wardrobe. The wine picnic laid out with a herd grazing in the vista. The farm-to-table dinner that looks too composed to eat.

Don’t get me wrong. I came fully intending to write my own version of that piece. Lord knows I packed for it. I probably spent as much on every “essential” inside my brand new soft-sided luggage as I did on the trip itself. Each leg its own category, each occasion its own outfit, the whole trip sorted and labeled before I left the house. The limit was thirty-three pounds. I exceeded it. Knowingly. I’m a rule breaker, after all.

And I took the photos. Trust me, I took thousands.

But there are two sides to every story. The other half of the Mara is the one you won’t find in the brochure. The one that makes those beautiful posts even possible. This week, the lens widened, and I met the Kenya that exists behind the shiny four-by-six photos that fill the frames.

Putting these past several weeks into words feels like a task bigger than the land itself. So I’m dividing the telling the way I divide my packing cubes. Four distinct parts, each carrying the weight it deserves. This is part one. Welcome to the Africa you may not have known existed.

I arrived on an organized retreat, the Sacred Awakening Retreat. I’m honestly not a group-travel person. At all. But my daughter Elise called me the moment she saw a dear friend was hosting it. Mom, you have to go. She’d been on safari the year before, and it changed her. She wanted me to see what she saw. It had always been on my bucket list. It just wasn’t on my late husband’s. It seemed like the right time to finally do the thing I’d been waiting to do. A friend decided to come too. That sealed the deal, and I’m so grateful we made the choice to go.

Underneath all of it was Paige Elenson. Paige has lived in Kenya for the better part of two decades, responsible for the employment of countless youth through an organization she co-founded, Africa Yoga Project. A non-profit that uses yoga to educate and employ young people across Africa, so they can become leaders in their own communities. An organization I hold dear.

With her name on the itinerary, I should have known. A trip Paige touches is never the curated half. Of course the lens got wider. That’s what she does. She widens it, then asks you to look in the most introspective, beautiful and inviting way.

And here’s the part that gets me. It was all right there on the schedule. Spending time in the local environment, connected to the community, nature and purpose. I read it like a mission statement and saw it as logistics. Then, I lived it as something else entirely.

So I looked.

It’s everywhere, if you’re looking. Unless you arrive by private jet, positioned right beside a five-star camp, which is possible, and is part two of this series. But that’s not how I first arrived. My drive was long.

Nothing in the Mara is close. Every journey requires some version of an unpaved road. And the longer you travel, the more you see. The children walking to school, some without shoes. The homes of mud and thatch, of tin pressed into walls. The river, and the mile of hill between it and everywhere the water needs to go.

None of it staged, posed, or curated for a reel. Just authentic. Always there. Exactly that far outside the frame I’d have happily called the whole picture.

Not this week, though.

This week, I lived outside the frame.

We visited a primary school where we stepped off the safari trucks like celebrities walking into a stadium of screaming fans. They don’t get visitors often, so they welcomed us like we were the most important people who had ever arrived. Children reaching for my hand, touching my blonde hair, saying my name, telling me they loved me.

They meant it. That’s the part that takes the floor out from under you. The people with the least, giving us all they have to offer. Their time. Their presence. Their hands to hold. Their voices.

We played. We laughed. We had the simple kind of joy, the kind that doesn’t check whether anyone’s watching.

We felt the same fanfare at the local college and high school. Students who are the first in their families to receive an education. Celebrities in their own villages, in their own right. They see education as an opportunity, a means to a new life, for themselves and for the countless family members behind them. Their pride, their joy, their devotion, their determination. If you could bottle it, it would be worth more than anything sold here.

We visited the Kipsigis mamas. Literally the mothers of the community. We met a woman who built her home over eleven years for about a hundred and fifty dollars. I have spent more than that on a Tuesday and could not tell you on what.

She invited us in. Shared her life. Held the whole room with the story of how she’s transforming her community by empowering the women in it.

Then she showed us how she lives. We walked down to the river and filled the jugs. The ones they depend on to sustain their lives. Wash their clothes. Cook their food. Water their crops. And care for their livestock.

And the jugs weren’t light. They were fourteen liters (or forty pounds to you and me, which required a Google search and conversion to know). Then, up the hill. With the full jug strapped to my back or wrapped around my head (an option I didn’t take for fear that I would return without a full head of hair).

I did it once, as an experience. They do it multiple times a day simply to survive.

I got to put mine down. They cannot.

And there are photos I didn’t take.

Not because I didn’t want to capture the moment. Because the moment captured me, in a way no photo could hand back to anyone later. Some things don’t go through the lens. They go straight in and stay.

The most real hour of my week is the one with no proof it happened.

And then there’s Jackson.

I spent the week with Jackson. A Maasai elder. Warrior, in the way the word actually means here. The last generation to earn it the old way.

The most obvious and still prevalent telltale sign of a Maasai warrior is a missing front tooth. It’s a visible marker of identity, of beauty, maturity, and belonging. The sign that someone has crossed into adulthood and earned their place in the community. Worn with pride, never hidden. And even if they wanted it back, a dentist is not a profession in the Mara. When that tooth comes out, it’s done by an elder with the tip of a machete. The same one they carry at their waist. The same one that cuts the leaf from the vine, and in a worst-case scenario, the last defense in a wildlife encounter. All of which occur.

Last night Jackson walked us through the brush. Taught us the weapons. And then, the path. What it has always taken to become a warrior here, and what that path has become.

At fourteen, one of the first rites is a public circumcision. The circumciser’s only job is to make the boy flinch. A blink. A breath. The twitch of a single toe as the blade meets skin, sometimes dull as a kitchen knife, sometimes doused in hot pepper oil. Any movement, and the label follows him and his family for generations. If he holds still, he’s earned it. If he doesn’t, his mother is beaten for raising a weak son.

The other rite was to kill a male lion. Alone. With a spear.

Jackson has killed six.

He told us this himself, at dusk, in the brush he’s known his whole life. Not as a performance. As a path. One he then explained has since been retired. The lions are protected now. And the change made room for something else: girls can become warriors too. And I met one, a she-warrior. I only knew she was a warrior by her tooth. The proving ground is no longer killing a lion. It’s education. The reward is still a cow. It remains the most prized gift and family possession. And one they work hard to achieve.

I keep thinking about who Jackson is in a safari photo. The silhouette. The red shuka against the sky, the figure the Mara prints on its brochures.

Every piece Jackson wears tells a story about identity, age, status, and community. His shuka, beadwork, jewelry, sandals, staff, and spear. What you do not see among them is his pen. Jackson co-authored a book, The Last Maasai Warriors, and he’s wielding the pen as purposefully as he once wielded the spear, toward something harder to win.

He and his fellow elders are rewriting a playbook as old as the land itself. Not to be photographed. To be heard. To change the landscape into one where girls become warriors through school instead of survival. Where women have a voice, earn a living, carry it back to their communities. Where there’s infrastructure, and health that’s tended, and clean water that doesn’t cost a mile uphill. Where there’s food.

The spear protected the old world.

The pen is building a new one.

And he didn’t hide any of it from us. None of them did. They didn’t keep their half of the Mara outside the frame. They invited us in, so that we might help carry the voice out. So that when the world looks at Kenya, it sees something that makes it pause instead of scroll. Something that connects the dots between the beautiful moment and what it costs to make that moment possible.

A community’s survival, underneath the postcard.

I don’t know what to call the week.

On paper it was a retreat. That’s what I booked. That’s what I paid for. It wasn’t a mission trip. It wasn’t a training. And I won’t shrink it by calling it a cultural immersion, or a life-changing experience, though I suppose it was both. Those words are too small.

I still don’t have the word for it. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s enough to know this half of the Mara exists. And to know that the half I came for, the five-star luxury one, isn’t at odds with it. It’s welcomed. Because it offers the Maasai what they need to build their new world.

What I do know is what Mara authenticity looks like now. And it’s not in any brochure.

The curated bag is me. Authentically me. Every considered, labeled, occasion-matched piece of it. I packed for the trip I thought I was taking.

The Mara didn’t stay in its category.

I’m writing this en route to the half I came for. The Instagram-worthy one. I’ve learned there are two real times to see the Big Five, the animals everyone comes for: dawn and dusk. My next stop has it all teed up, curated and certain, the animals practically waiting in the wings. I won’t pretend I won’t love every frame.

Both are true. The woman with the curated bag and the one who carried the water a mile uphill. I’m not choosing between them. Jackson is the reason I don’t have to.

And tomorrow at dawn, a hot air balloon. It will lift me up and show me how vast this land is. How far apart two lives can sit on the same stretch of ground. The divide between where I was this week and where I’ll be an hour from now, measured in a single ride.

I’ll be looking down at both halves at once.

But the thing I can’t stop turning over isn’t ahead of me. It’s Jackson, riding shotgun.

Two hours from Bogani to the five-star camp, he stayed on as our guide, watching the road, keeping us safe, all the way into the half of the Mara I came for. The same spear that killed six lions, now clearing the bush bathroom of wildlife before we stepped in. Trust me, two hours on those roads requires a pit stop or two. Behind a tree or not, it’s a necessity at 52.

He has every reason to resent this half. The luxury. The lens. The version of his homeland that gets sold while his people carry water up a hill.

He doesn’t.

He loves it. All of it. He knows this half feeds his land and his people, and he embraces it the way he embraces the rest, with joy, with wonderment, with both halves held easily in the same two hands that have thrown a spear and now hold a pen.

I spent a week learning I didn’t have to choose between the woman with the curated bag and the one who carried the water.

The man with the most reason to choose was sitting beside me the whole time.

Choosing both.

Still.

Always EDITing, Leslie

P.S. - Part two is the half I came for. The luxury. The Big Five at dawn and dusk. The frames I won’t pretend I won’t love. Coming next.

And part three. Aline. Through Africa Yoga Project, I spent three years mentoring a young teacher in Rwanda. We’ve never met in person. In a few days, we will. Everything else on this trip, I packed for. Her, I can’t. That moment will come with emotion that will require its own version of unpacking. That one gets its own Edit.

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I first heard it in a yoga class. Now I keep learning it the hard way, and I can’t seem to escape it, or myself.

Because yes, last week, I did, in fact, get us escorted out of one of the world’s greatest libraries.

And if I must admit it, I am shamelessly proud of myself for it.

We approached The Old Library at Trinity College Dublin as naive travelers, completely unaware you had to buy tickets and book a time. For once in my life, this trip had no itinerary. We’d come to Ireland for a wedding, an extraordinary one. A few bucket list items: the Cliffs of Moher, Guinness. Beyond that, The Old Library was the only other thing on the list.

It never occurred to me a library required tickets.

When they told us the next available tour was several hours later, I looked at my husband and said, well, wherever there’s an entrance, there’s an exit. Let’s go find it.

Dave is the rule follower. I told him to follow my lead.

And that he did.

Because when someone tells me I can’t, I don’t take it at face value. I turn it into oh, yeah? Let me prove to you that I can.

I told the guard I was looking for my mother, the ticket holder. She was not, in fact, there, or in Ireland at all. He was kind enough to believe me, which is the reason my husband continues to pray for me, and let us up the steps.

There it was, in all its glory. The heads of all the literary greats, capstoning each aisle. The shelves themselves mostly empty; the library is under reconstruction. (Which for some reason made me feel slightly better about my little white lie.) I walked around. Took a few photos, and asked Dave to take a few more for me.

He was visibly uncomfortable. Stiff as a board. My poor Catholic husband. In the silence of that grand barrel-vaulted Long Room, with only the faint whispers of tourists, it was as though I could hear him quietly reciting “forgive us our trespasses” over and over as he made his way past each of the famed marble busts.

The library also holds the original Guinness harp, alongside the university’s oldest books. To round out our nefarious break-in, we started toward the harp, past the exit stairs we’d climbed on the way in. Just then Dave noticed an older couple leaving, turned, and said, let’s follow behind them. She looks old enough to be your mother. The guard will be none the wiser. I looked at him, I’m sure with an eye roll, and carried on with my quest.

Just as we laid eyes on the harp, the guard laid eyes on us. With a knowing look, he pointed to the stairs and ushered us directly down and out. Dave, with his tail between his legs and me with my head held high.

For the record, we did make a donation at the library gift shop. I am not a conscienceless bandit.

It’s not lost on me that I got kicked out of a library at a university I could never have gotten into in the first place.

But travel just goes to show you. You can never truly escape who you are.

And it’s not just travel. When I started on Substack, the plan was a lifestyle blog. Travel, aesthetics, the curated stuff. From the very first piece, what came out was something else. A turn inward. A deeper dive. Of course it did. Wherever you go, there you are. I have always been interested in understanding myself more deeply.

Here’s the thing, though.

In the moment, my reaction came from what was already wired. I didn’t pause long enough to understand what was driving me to the exit. I just started walking. Dave reluctantly in tow, but curious enough to stick with me. He’s also keenly aware of my instinct to break rules and wasn’t about to challenge it in the midst of the library square buzzing with scholars who held the air of “I belong,” where we clearly didn’t.

It was only later, only when I sat down to write this, that I had to do the double-click. To ask why I couldn’t just take no at face value. Why my brain doesn’t hear “you can’t” and stop. It hears it and goes hunting for the way in.

And I know exactly where it comes from.

You cannot leave the dinner table until you eat that entire fish. Head, eyes, and all.

I know my dad’s reading this. So. Thanks, Dad. You’re the reason I became a stubborn rule breaker.

I don’t know what he was trying to prove. The fish was larger than my plate, though in fairness it was probably a sardine, but that was also before the days of his sobriety, so who knows. All I recall is that I sat there and must have thought: I’m not going to grow roots in this chair. Eventually they’ll get tired enough to want their own beds. And if I wait long enough, I’ll leave this table without eating a single bite.

So I sat. And I waited. And I left, fish untouched.

Something got wired that night when I was just eight years old. When someone says you can’t, there is always a way in which you can.

Decades later, it walked me up the stairs of The Old Library.

I didn’t decide to be that person at the entrance. I already was. The deciding, the seeing, only came after.

And that’s the part I’ve actually been working on. Not just since I started writing. For a long time now. Getting to know my parts. The stubborn one. The analytical one. The one that reverts to a child at a dinner table without noticing she’s done it.

We all have them. The people pleaser. The one who needs to be right. The one who keeps the peace and calls it kindness.

We weren’t born knowing an apple was an apple. Someone showed us. We learned it. And anything learned can, in theory, be unlearned.

But only if you can catch it in the act.

That’s the work. Seeing the part show up. Oh, there it is again. And understanding where it came from. Some of mine I like. Some of them I’m proud of (I am a damn good organizer). And some of them get in the way of being a good partner, a good parent, a good human. Those are the ones I’m still tracing back to the root.

I’ll never escape myself.

But maybe that was never the point. Maybe the point is to finally see it, the part that walks to the back door before I’ve even decided to, and ask where it came from.

So here’s my curiosity, beyond the travel: what part of you shows up when you’re not looking? The spirited one. The one that craves being seen. The one that needs to be liked, to belong.

When does it show up?

And do you know yet where it was wired? Please share. I would love to learn from each of you.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. A few frames from the rest of our day in Dublin.

We started at Guinness, the self-guided Stoutie tour winding up through the building. For 170 years they didn’t advertise; the beer did the talking. When the family finally agreed to it, there was one rule: the advertising had to be as good as the beer and they proved it to be. They let you sample, then they let you taste. We had our own selfies poured into the foam, then climbed to the Gravity Bar, the round room with the 360 view of the whole city.

A picture-perfect day, the kind Ireland doesn't hand out often. We walked the entire city. Split the G more than once. We found our way into a whiskey bar and even ate Shepherd's Pie. (If you find your way to Dublin, The Ivy has one that's worthy of every bite.)

I don’t regret a minute of it. Including the break-in.

P.P.S. I am still working on the piece that gets to the root of all my parts. That journey has its own story. One that is taking time. In the meantime, I just arrived in Africa. The next few Edits will be from this extraordinary part of the world. Stay with me.

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How are you wired? What drives you? I’d love to know. Are you a rule breaker? Ruler follower? Fellow aspiring CIA Agent? Organizer? Planner? Casual observer? The list is longer than space allows. Drop your most beloved part below. Let’s discovery through each other.

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Rather than battle spotty wi-fi loading all the photos and tales from our time in Ireland, I’ll leave you with this. A photo from the cornerstone of our trip. The reason we had a reason to visit this majestic Emerald Isle.

Not that visiting Ireland needs a reason beyond curiosity and a little spirited adventure. But this epic Bridgerton-esque wedding, fresh oyster and champagne cart included, became ours. And it was nothing short of incredible.

More to come Sunday. Including how I got my rule-following, Type-A, Catholic-born and still-practicing husband to break into Ireland’s most beloved historic library.

And then get escorted out. Oops.

While he’s still asking for forgiveness. I’ll be writing about it.

Cheers from somewhere above Ireland.

Until Sunday…

Always EDITing,
Leslie

P.S. I’d love to know your favorite travel tales or destinations. Drop a comment. I am always looking to plan the next escapade.

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P.P.S. I am headed on safari in Kenya and then onto Rwanda to go gorilla trekking. If you’re interested in following along, subscribe for all the updates along the way.

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I am just at the beginning of a multi-continent adventure. This first stop is Ireland.

What I didn’t have was the rest of my luggage. It was en route to Paris. Ironically, my favorite city in the world. One of the best places to run in the early morning, the smell of bread baking city-wide.

I digress.

It took 36 hours. Whether it was standard procedure, my bulldog persistence with Delta, or the customer service rep who seemed to place 911-level alerts throughout their system, our bags finally arrived. The AirTags earned their spot on my Travel Essentials list. We could tell Delta exactly where to find the bags.

Fortunately for me, my husband is as patient as a saint and sees the bright side of everything. Our attention never landed on what we didn’t have. Only on what we did.

I am learning to roll more like a ball and less like a square.

Oddly enough, Dave is more organized than me. I truly found my unicorn, but where we differ is he rolls while I fumble. Sometimes I get so caught up in perfecting that I lose sight of what is most important.

My late husband and I traveled the world together. I’m still wound tight, but his itineraries had itineraries. Looking back, I wonder how much I lost in that.

I’ve seen it show up everywhere since. An unwillingness to let go. Gripping something so tight that other things slip by.

You know the grip. We all have one.

Hello, sword of blame and judgment. I’m grateful I set those down years ago. The heaviest, the one of righteousness, that one still lives in the arsenal. It’s dusty. It’s also what keeps the edges of my square sharp. That sword though is slowly dulling as are my edges.

The last couple of years have been filled with loss. I lost my late husband and my best friend both unexpectedly, and then my daughter to college, followed by a whole litany of change. Some planned, some spontaneous, some out of left field. All of it has taught me more lessons than I asked for. More than I care to count. Many of which I am still trying to piece together as I piece myself back together.

While this 26 day adventure could read as an Eat, Pray, Love like midlife reconciliation, it’s not. It’s just pure fun.

Ireland first. Then onto parts of the world I only dreamed of discovering.

So here’s where it began.

From the Dublin airport, we were driven straight to Adare Manor, in a small, quaint village in County Limerick. This pivot from our original plan arrived last week. We couldn’t return from Ireland without a glimpse of what we’d only seen in movies. But the immediacy of the drive meant picking up the basics at the Manor pro shop, which Dave didn’t mind, and the manor boutique, which I relished. The local wool and cashmere artisan designed her brand around creativity and sustainability (Cayo). How could I not want to support her… on Delta’s dime.

We both found exactly what we needed for the day ahead.

That first night, in what we arrived with, we wandered into the village for a pint and a prosecco. Then the local grocery store. For a hairbrush. Seriously, I arrived with no toiletries but somehow with a camera I still don’t know how to use and my favorite handbags, the ones that made the travel list.

The woman who packed 26 vitamin bags. Buying a hairbrush in a village shop in Ireland while staying at a Manor so precisely manicured that each blade of grass on this Central Park-like property (one acre less, in fact) seems as curated as each of my packing cubes. The irony.

I grew up with twins for close friends each with beautiful wavy red hair. A far cry from my stick-straight blonde. They could wash and go on the fly. The perfectionist and future banker in me (yes, I started my career as one) needed all the product and all the tools.

My hair has never been my friend. Shower and go looks profoundly different on me.

I had someone once tell me my hair was too straight. What does that even mean anyway? I am still untangling that one.

So thank you, Adare Grocery.

The next morning we met Keiran, our driver, from the town of Adare. He knows the region like the back of his hand. Every winding road. Every little village. He took us first to Bunratty, a 15th-century castle, exactly the medieval winding staircase you’d imagine. We climbed to the top and got the most epic photo. Irish luck. Two people kissing with an Irish flag blowing behind them.

From there, through the hills, to the shores of Lahinch where we spotted a few Irish surfers, then onto the Cliffs of Moher.

What do I say about the Cliffs of Moher.

Dramatic. Epically green from continuous days of rain. And windy. I mean blow-me-over kind of wind.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t have a hairbrush. There was no controlling my hair anyway.

Nor did it matter that the only thing I’d arrived in Ireland with was a pair of tennis shoes. The ones I wore on the plane.

Because that’s exactly what the day needed.

On the way back we stopped at an old Irish pub, Fitz’s, in Doolin, for seafood chowder, brown bread, and a pint of Guinness, of course. Then back to Adare, where we were finally reunited with our luggage.

A shower awaits. One where I can wash my hair and brush it with a brush of my own and all the product to hold down my locks.

But standing at the edge of those cliffs today, with none of it. No plan. No luggage. No hairbrush. No control over a single strand of hair in that wind.

I didn’t miss any of it.

Turns out, I am after all these years, finally learning to roll.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. My writing usually comes from reflection. Experiencing something, then letting it land. The next few weeks look different. Less reflected. More lived. Sent from the road, through the lens of a camera I’m still learning. The cadence will wobble. Stay with me. I’ll be here, just in motion.

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Lost anything along the way? I am curious what other travel snafus you’ve encountered. I am certain I am not alone here.

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Yesterday I was late to a meeting because one more thing needed labeling.

It was a planning meeting. I’ll let that sit for a second.

On Wednesday I leave for almost a month. Twenty-six days, several countries, more time zones than I want to count. Part of it city, part of it jungle. I’ll be gorilla trekking in Rwanda before it’s over. And celebrating our nation’s 250th birthday on a rooftop over the Potomac by returning to Florida.

So this week I’ve been decanting things into smaller containers. TSA-approved, which means everything I own is now in a vessel it doesn’t normally live in. I label each one. Not because I’m fussy. Because three weeks from now I’ll be reaching for something at an hour my body doesn’t recognize, jet-lagged, off my circadian rhythm, awake when I shouldn’t be. And I will not trust myself to know what’s what.

The lotion and the shampoo look the same in unmarked travel bottles. I don’t want to wash my face with shampoo or put lotion in my hair.

So I label. So that disoriented me, somewhere unfamiliar, knows exactly which packing cube has the pajamas and where the charging cord is. I rearrange my whole life around TSA’s rules so the bag that matters never leaves my side. And TSA doesn’t trash my belongings. I’ve had that happen before. It’s expensive mistake.

I was in the middle of it yesterday. I got caught up in it again today. It’s part of my DNA.

And somewhere in the middle of it, a few minutes past the time I should have arrived, my girlfriend texted me. Are you coming?

I shot her a quick text back that my voice note got as rocky as I was in the moment: a little bit of grace I am almost there I am a type a girl living in a type B world today it’s been a little rocky trying to roll like a square

Here’s what you should know about me. My house is categorically categorized. Labeled. Someone else could move in tomorrow and find the batteries. The safety pins. The things that were notoriously lost, never findable, in the many homes I grew up in.

I built this. On purpose.

And I love it. This isn’t a confession. I love the hyperorganized, diligent part of me.

It’s not for everyone. I get that.

But here’s what I believe: the work you put in to build the foundation creates ease everywhere else.

The hours this week are not lost hours. The label maker is not a quirk I’m sheepish about. The version of me reaching for something three time zones from home, she’s calm, because the version of me standing here today did the work. That’s the trade. Front-loaded effort for future ease.

So yes. Sometimes the same instinct that makes me ready makes me late. A few minutes other people would never spend, spent on a label they’d never think to make.

My late husband George used to say I lived on my own time zone.

He wasn’t wrong.

Some days I’m trying to roll like a ball. But I’m a square. So the path is a little rocky.

And it’s still my path. I’ve watched my daughter grow into the same wiring. The same desire to have structure. Organization. A home for everything that needs a home.

It’s a part of me I have grown to love and rely on.

Others rely on me for it now too. It’s become a gift.

Ultimately the label isn’t the thing that slows me down.

The label is the thing that means future me never has to search. That is the grace.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. If you’re wired like me, here’s how I keep myself contained and feeling closest to home on the road. And if you’re not, here’s what to get the square in your life.

These are the ten I don’t leave home without. Not a ranking. The whole list.

Packing cubes and an extra bag for dirty clothes. You can find cubes anywhere, and I’ve tried many over the years. What I like about these: they zip all the way open. I’ve had others that don’t, and that’s frustrating when you’re trying to pack things flat without wrinkling them. The compression is key too. Not the vacuum-sealed kind, those leave everything too wrinkled. These ones are great. And the extra bag for dirty clothes, when I forget it, I always regret it. Rolling up one extra takes no space and saves you every time.

RIES airless pump travel bottles. Mine are the set of three, 1.7 oz, TSA-approved and leak-proof. I use them for shampoo, conditioner, and face soap. They’re refillable, BPA-free, easy to use, and I’ve never had one leak. They turn at the top. One note: they come marked shampoo and conditioner, but I find the labels hard to read in the shower. As I said, I’m a little old these days and can’t quite see the way I used to. So I take a Sharpie to them. Of course I do.

Cadence travel containers. I use the Daily Routine set, magnetic containers with lids, four mediums at 1.32 oz and three smalls at 0.56 oz. My favorite for condensing face products. The magnets mean they snap together and don’t roll around, and the sizes cover everything from shampoo to pills.

The Simplehuman light-up mirror. Compact, lit, and 10x magnification. I can’t live without it. Hotel bathrooms have terrible lighting. My eyes are aging. If I have any intention of wearing makeup, or just want an honest look at my own skin, I can’t rely on anything but this. The magnification and the light together make it worth the price.

Katie Loxton makeup bags. I have them in three sizes. They fold open. They’re durable. I’ve tried so many others. These are my favorite by far.

Pill bags. I’ve shared these before. Each day of vitamins and supplements goes into its own little reusable bag. They’re also great for jewelry. Hair ties. Coins. Nearly anything small. I don’t like things rolling around the bottom of my bag. And here’s a small trick I’m proud of: you can peel the label off a medicine bottle and reattach it to the bag. I did that with my malaria pills for Africa and got to recycle the bottle.

5-in-1 portable charger. This one seems obvious. But I’ve forgotten a charger before. What I love about this one: it has three cables built in plus a wall plug, so it covers everything and I don’t need to pack separate cords or adapters. You never know if you’ll land next to an outlet, on a plane, in an airport, or anywhere else. This one has been with me across the globe.

The red exercise band. Mine comes in a five-pack, and the red one is my go-to. Just the right amount of resistance. I’ve used these consistently for years. It weighs nothing and I can do an entire workout with it. Core work, all of it. There are so many things you can do with one band, and it takes up zero space. It keeps me on track when my routine is anywhere but home. It also makes a great bookmark, if you want it to. There’s always one in my bag.

AirTags. This goes without saying, but it occurred to me today when I went to buy replacement batteries for them. I popped mine into little holders with a clip, so I can attach them right to a zipper inside the suitcase. That way it’s not rolling around and feels a little extra secure. If you do have to check a bag, they’re an extra layer of comfort. Lost luggage happens. When it does, it helps to know exactly where it is.

The Tumi Just In Case Tote. This one is a gem. It costs hardly any room, but if you find yourself needing more space on the way home, souvenirs are sometimes a must, it fits more than you think. You can consolidate into it and suddenly you don’t look like a bag lady. The two-bag rule can be frustrating. This lets you put bags inside bags and wheel on board without an issue.

Finally, a reminder. When you’re shopping for any of this online, check Rakuten first. If you’re not using it, I can’t say enough about it, and the thousands of dollars I’ve earned back over time. True cash in my pocket. If you want to know more, I wrote about it in my piece called Girl Math. You won’t regret it. Neither will your bank account.

Wow… if you got all the way to the end… THANK YOU for reading.

Type A or Type B? And what's the one thing you'd never leave home without? Tell me what I missed.

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Each week, I write about the patterns we don’t see until we name them. Motherhood. Marriage. Grief. The roles we keep playing. Two pieces a week. Tuesday and Sunday. Follow along.

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That space is already taken.

Someone else already rose to the top. That idea has already been claimed.

What else could possibly be invented?

This is what runs through my head when I listen to other people’s success stories. Not from a jealous place. It’s deeper than that. It’s a quiet belief that someone is already sitting at the head of every table. Every meaningful seat filled by someone smarter, more talented, more connected, more experienced.

So you start questioning what you could possibly bring that doesn’t already exist.

A friend said something to me yesterday.

I think my brain is where good ideas go to die.

She meant the ideas that arrive and never leave the room they were born in. I’ve been sitting with that line ever since, because I know exactly where I do my own version of it.

I open the app and it’s a wall of other people’s announcements.

I just signed with an agent. I just published a book. I just made the bestseller list.

All of it real, all of it earned, all of it amazing. And I read it from the base of the foothills, looking up at people standing somewhere near the summit, wondering if the climb is even still available. Is the shelf space already full?

Sometimes other people’s success propels you. It gives you momentum, pulls you forward, shows you the thing is possible.

And sometimes the same exact thing flattens you.

Same input. Opposite effect. The difference is just whatever you already believed about your own seat at the table when you opened the app.

I think this is happening to a lot of people right now. And this time of year magnifies it.

Students are graduating. My daughter is nearly one of them. One minute she’s a curly bleach-blonde girl in jean shorts and Birkenstocks with a backpack. The next she’s in heels and a structured suit carrying what is essentially a briefcase on her way to her internship.

Of course there’s an identity crisis. How could there not be?

The costume changes before the nervous system catches up.

A young friend I had dinner with a few week’s ago put it darker. The real reckoning isn’t a year out from graduation. It’s the anniversary of your first day of work, when it lands that this is the next thirty or forty years.

Most of us hit some version of that. Again and again. For the rest of our lives.

At 22 it sounds like: Who am I in this world now?

At midlife it sounds like:

Am I too old? Too late? Too behind? Does the world even need another voice in this space?

That last one is mine. The one I have to talk myself out of. What could I possibly offer that hasn’t already been said better by someone else.

And yet I keep watching the same truth get authored over and over, by remarkable people, in completely different ways. Same idea. Different carrier. And the carrier is the whole thing.

Because people don’t connect to ideas.

They connect to energy. Perspective. Voice. Timing. The particular life someone lived before they said the thing.

Twenty people can speak on the exact same topic and one person rearranges something inside you.

Not because the topic was new.

Because the person was.

I listened to Oprah on her podcast recently. She said that for the first time since her original show ended, she finally feels lit up again. Creatively. Like she’d come out of a fog.

And I thought, if Oprah Winfrey can sit in a fog, what makes the rest of us think we’re failing when we do?

Maybe the fog isn’t failure. Maybe it’s just what happens before reinvention.

I did some deep therapy work a few weeks ago. Not the kind that just looks at your past. The kind that goes after the root of what you believe about yourself.

And what I found was something I already knew.

I am not worthy.

I’ve carried that one a long time.

Here’s what I’ve realized in the weeks since. When that belief gets touched, when something leaves me feeling unseen, unheard, like there aren’t enough seats at the table, it doesn’t show up as a thought. It shows up in my body. Something lands in the pit of my belly. A tightness in my chest. My nervous system tangles. I come undone.

Social media is the red light. You open it and you don’t know what’s coming. Some days it’s all golden retrievers. Right now it's gorillas, because I'm getting ready to go gorilla trekking in Rwanda.

And some days it’s a thread of people standing at the summit, and the thing lands in my body before my brain has a say.

For a long time I thought that feeling was information. That it meant something true about me. That I was never worthy of a seat at all.

It isn’t.

I think about one of my first yoga classes. Packed. Wall to wall, mat to mat, inches apart. The instructor brought us into a wide-leg forward fold and invited anyone who wanted to take a headstand.

Oh, dear Lord, I thought. This is going to be dominoes. The whole room coming down on top of each other.

Head below my heart, a window between my legs, I looked back through the sea of people. And there were feet in the air. Solid. Like pillars in the middle of the room.

I wasn’t doing yoga. I was doing watch asana. Marveling at the room, certain I’ll never be able to do that.

Years later I was the one calling for the headstand, in a studio I built that’s twelve years strong. And I was the one with my feet in the air, head rooted to the ground. Or hands planted, feet high overhead. I’m five foot nine and a half, and when I take a handstand I become something that feels indestructible. The tallest pillar in the room.

If I’d stayed in the seat of the student. In watch asana. Tangled in the belief that it wasn’t mine to do.

I’d never have gotten there.

That response. The flatten, the pit of the belly, the voice. It’s coming from an old part of me. An unhealed one. And the difference now is that I can feel it for what it is. Not a verdict. Just a wound getting touched.

When it starts to feel like that childhood game, musical chairs, the music stopping, suddenly not one left for you...

there is.

You just have to go grab it from another room. Pull it up.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. Each week, I write about the patterns we don’t see until we name them. Motherhood. Marriage. Grief. The roles we keep playing. Two pieces a week. Tuesday and Sunday. Follow along.

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P.P.S. I'm leaving soon for a few weeks overseas. A friend said to me today, people must be so excited to see what you're up to. I'll be honest… that had never once occurred to me. So I'm genuinely curious. Would you want to see the photos? Tell me. I'd love to know.

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I do at 52.

15,700 likes. 531 comments. In two days.

I started Thursday with zero followers. By Sunday I had 582, and my profile had been viewed nearly a quarter of a million times.

For someone who doesn’t have a real social media presence, this felt insane.

Let me back up.

I’m trying to grow my Substack. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.

Some people arrive with an audience already built. A following somewhere else that comes with them. I’m not one of them. No real Instagram presence. I’m not an influencer. I’m not, honestly, much of a social media person at all.

So I’ve been paying attention to how other people do it. I’ve read all the articles. You know what I mean.

There’s a writer I started following a few months ago. She’s a wonderful writer, and her growth has been remarkable. Honestly, none of it surprises me. In one piece she mentioned a note she’d posted on Threads that had taken off. I got curious… enough to actually go look. I wanted to understand what it was about.

What I found surprised me. It isn’t Instagram. It isn’t quite Substack either. It felt like a younger brother… a looser, more provocative version with less guardrails. Less performance. More chat. Like stepping into a pub where everyone’s had a couple drinks and words are flowing freely.

And I’ll be honest. There’s a part of me, at 52, that still feels unworthy of taking up the space. Sharing a platform with gifted writers. That part of me felt somewhat at ease with Threads.

So on Thursday, on the way to Washington, I jumped in anyway. Zero following. My first note: I just arrived on the scene. Any tips for the new kid on the block?

Twenty people answered.

Just be yourself. Comment when you want. Think of it like a big chat group.

Lift others up.

Be as feral as you like.

Block family and friends from real life if you want to stay feral.

Don’t post dick pics.

I laughed out loud at that last one. It’s 2026 and we still have to say it to each other.

But that was the thing. The whole welcome was like that. Honest. Disarming. Nobody selling anything. Nobody curating. Welcoming in a way that didn’t feel performative at all.

So I tried. I posted a few things. Shared a few thoughts. Nothing was tracking.

Then Saturday night, on our way to dinner in DC, it occurred to me I hadn’t posted again all day.

So I put up that photo. Those four words.

I’d been studying how to grow, doing the small deliberate things. And the thing that traveled was the one I almost forgot to post.

A second thought. Something I was sure wouldn’t make a difference.

Not instead of the effort. On top of it.

The deliberate work got me in the room. The thing I didn’t think about is what people could feel.

I was trying to grow. I wasn’t trying to win.

When I lost my late husband unexpectedly, when life flipped upside down and everything I knew went with it, rebuilding wasn’t about winning. How could it be? It was about moving forward. The only direction I could go. I hear people say, I’m in my no fucks era. I think about it differently. It’s discernment without abandonment.

I still care. In fact I care deeply. I just care differently now.

Maybe that’s why I could post it without thinking.

Yes, the numbers stopped me. But what really got my attention was the messages.

Hundreds of them. Some version of the same thing, over and over.

Thank you for giving me hope.

Hope for love. Hope for a second chapter. Hope that life can still surprise us. Hope that their story isn’t over.

I’ve read nearly all of them. I’m still answering each one.

I didn’t post it to inspire anyone. I posted it because I’m in love, and I wanted to share the moment.

For the first time in my life, I’ve been stepping outside my comfort zone. In front of the camera. And this strange new place felt, of all things, safe enough to do it.

What surprised me most was how many people were reaching for hope.

People are looking for it everywhere. In small places. In big ones. I drove around town today, an ordinary Monday, and caught the stink eye at half the stop signs. People are tired. People are bracing.

And then four words and a photo gave a few thousand strangers something to hold onto.

Faith, Hope, and Love were the cornerstone of our wedding. They’re the cornerstone of our marriage. They sit underneath everything.

But hope might be the one the world is hungriest for right now.

If four words and an image can offer it, then so can the words and the talents the rest of us are walking around with.

And here’s the part I keep sitting with.

The response gave me hope.

Readers don’t just want to follow influencers.

My writing isn’t all for nothing.

And that part of me that felt unworthy of taking up the space?

I’m realizing I’m worthy of it.

Always Editing,
Leslie

P.S. And yes — to answer the question that sent me to Threads in the first place: my subscriber base grew too. So if you’ve wondered whether it’s worth finding your way over there, it is. Find me when you do. I’ll follow you back.

P.P.S The writer. The one who unknowingly became my expander. She deserves a shout out too. Thank you . Your truth is the feral cat in the room, and the one that keeps me coming back to your words.

You know how I feel about comments. I read every one. They're the reason I keep showing up. Leave me yours.

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My late husband died and those words went with him.

I don’t have a single recording of George saying I love you. Not a voice memo. Not a video. Nowhere in my phone, in this whole digital age, can I pull up his voice and hear it.

I have one voicemail from him.

December 16, 2022.

It’s ten seconds long. The only thing he says is hello... hello? Something wasn’t working in that moment. The line, the signal, something. He was reaching and not getting through.

That’s the one voicemail I have. Him, trying to connect, and the words never landing.

For some reason, I didn’t delete it at the time.

He died unexpectedly a few months later.

Those seemingly meaningless words became entombed in my phone.

I’m writing this with tears. I’ll be honest about that.

I remarried.

If you scroll through my voicemail inbox right now, there are thirty-six of them from my husband Dave. I counted.

They’re short. He’s on his way home, or out running an errand. They almost always start the same way.

Hey, babe.

And they almost always end the same way too.

I love you.

I am completely unwilling to delete a single one.

And I hear those words at home, too. On any given day.

Then there’s one from Elise. My daughter. 2015. She would have been ten.

Hi mommy I love you so much love you bye.

She left it without thinking. The way a child does. The exact words, all of them, in one breath, and then gone — love you bye — already on to the next thing.

And then, ironically, one more. From my late best friend Todd.

He passed away suddenly one year after George.

He called late at night. A few pops under his belt, as he would say. Which usually looked like straight vodka on ice.

God love him.

The voicemail is terse. He was mad at me. Inappropriate, frankly. And I still keep it.

It makes me laugh now. We had that kind of relationship. George used to say we were like brother and sister.

So I keep them all. A ten-year-old saying I love you so much without being asked. Dave, thirty-six times. Todd, mad at me at midnight. George, reaching through a bad connection and never quite getting there.

The words… from a child. From my husband. From others.

Everyone except from him. I’d do anything to hear him say them. But I can’t.

He lost his words before he lost his life.

A spontaneous rupture arrived and scrambled everything. Three weeks of word salad that carried no meaning. The brain bleed took that from him. It took it from me.

And it rips me to shreds that I don’t recall the last time he said it. Not because he didn’t. Because he did so often it became the background. The casual departure.

I do have him, though. Not his voice saying the words, but him.

There are videos. Funny ones I can replay. One where he’s at the piano. He loved to play. I’m so blessed I can still hear his music whenever I want.

But to hear him say I love you and be able to play that. That’s the one. That’s the wish.

I can’t clip it together from fragments of what I do have. No AI in the world can generate the true sentiment. Nothing satisfies what only lives as a memory now. A sketchy one at best.

We planned for everything else. He was a lawyer by trade, after all. His affairs were in order. We just didn’t plan for the unexpected. And when it came, what I lost wasn’t on any list. His words. His ability to say I love you. The one inheritance that would keep part of us, part of him alive.

No one tells you to save the voice. Not a lawyer. Not an estate attorney. I wish they had.

I can’t go back for it. But I can keep it from happening again.

I’m in Washington, DC, right now. With Elise. I leave tomorrow.

I won’t see her again for more than a month.

That’s the hard part.

And then I’m getting on a plane to somewhere remote. I don’t know if I’ll have a good connection where I’m going.

I promise you, when I leave for that trip, I know exactly what I’m taking with me.

But before I go, I’m capturing her voice. Her telling me she loves me. And I’m leaving her mine. So she never has to wonder what I sounded like saying it.

If you’ve lost someone, you already know. You don’t need me to explain it.

And if you’re lucky enough to still hear those voices every day — then this is the only thing I’ll ask.

Save one. The voice. The words. The ordinary hey babe that’s so familiar you stopped hearing it.

Not because you’re afraid of losing it.

Because it’s worth keeping.

Capture them telling you. Let them capture you telling them.

Don’t wait. Do it before the next ordinary goodbye you won’t remember.

Hello... hello?

That’s what I have.

So I’m going to go get more.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. Each week, I write about the patterns we don’t see until we name them. Motherhood. Marriage. Grief. The roles we keep playing.

Two pieces a week. Tuesday and Sunday.

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Whose voice would you give anything to hear again—or which one are you going to capture before you can't? I would love to read about it.

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I have the same green cargo pants in three different versions.

James Perse. Velvet. Frame.

All green. All cargo. All the same. And yet, I’ve convinced myself, different enough.

I’m headed to Rwanda. Gorilla trekking. And to meet Aline.

I met Aline through the Africa Yoga Project. AYP empowers marginalized youth in Africa through yoga, leadership training, and employment.

I mentored her remotely for years, once a week on a screen. That was years ago. It changed her life. It changed mine. This is the trip where I finally meet her in person.

Even writing that makes me cry.

I’m anxious. Nervous. Excited. All of it rolled into one.

So yes, I have been preparing.

Not by packing. I haven’t done that.

By shopping.

I keep looking. Keep ordering. Keep deciphering.

The gorillas will not notice the difference between the subtle variations of my green cargo pants. I am fairly certain of this. And my travel companions? They came for the gorillas. Not my fashion show.

I know this.

And yet.

I keep curating. A capsule wardrobe for what I’ve decided will be a perfect trip. Every piece considered. Every shade of green accounted for. As if the right pants could guarantee the right experience.

It’s the perfectionist in me. The part that believes if I get the preparation exactly right, the thing itself will follow.

So I prepare. I order. I prepare to prepare.

And then, because apparently I wasn’t done, I bought a camera.

A real one. The kind that takes a beautiful photo, in the right hands.

Mine are not yet the right hands. I don’t know how to use it. Which means I now have a new project… learning the camera. And that’s layered on top of a trip I haven’t packed for, in service of capturing a trip I haven’t taken.

The suitcase is still open on the floor.

The piles are still piles.

But the Amazon cart is full. Still waiting for more. Still waiting for me to push Place Your Order.

Here’s the part that gives it away.

This week I’m leaving for Washington, D.C. I’ll pack for that the night before. Somehow that one seems easier. A trip that’s days away gets the night-before treatment. A trip that’s weeks away gets a capsule wardrobe and a camera I can’t operate.

The closer it is, the less I fuss. The farther it is, the more I prepare for it.

I’ll let you sit with what that says about me. I’m still sitting with it myself.

This isn’t just about packing.

This is Getting Ready to Get Ready. The hamster wheel. I’ve been on it a while now. It’s exhausting.

We all get caught up in it at some point. Starting to write and over-editing. Planning that turns into weeks of indecision. The minute you open Instagram, it hands you another idea. Another place to go. Something else to try instead.

We are flooded with information all the time. Too much information becomes the decision highway stuck in traffic. Like being on the 405 in LA for hours.

The cart fills. The wheel spins. The trip doesn’t get packed.

If I’m honest, the wheel isn’t just exhaustion.

It’s fear.

The part of me always waiting for the other shoe to drop. The part that thinks if I prepare enough, maybe nothing drastic happens to take this moment off the map.

As if planning could keep the worst from arriving.

I know what it looks like when something gets taken off the map. I’d rather not see it again.

The fourth pair of green cargo pants isn’t going to make the trip happen. Packing will.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. If you’d like to see what survived the wheel — the things I now take on every trip without thinking — vote below. I’m honestly curious whether it’d be useful to anyone but me.

P.P.S. I write about the patterns we don’t see until we name them.
Motherhood. Marriage. Grief. The roles we keep playing. Tuesdays and Sundays.
Follow along. I am always editing… something.

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I was on a phone call with a family member a few years ago, and I could feel it turning.

Not what was being said. The direction of it. The shift.

You know that moment. When something crosses from a conversation into something else.

And I remember thinking, we’re getting close.

So I said it. “Before one more thing gets said that either one of us will regret, I’m going to hang up now.”

I can recall exactly where I was. I had just pulled into the garage. CarPlay still active. The Bose speakers still reciting every breath. I shut the garage door. Turned off the engine.

And had my thumb hovering over the red END button on my screen when the ten words were said.

“You wouldn’t understand this from your selfish point of view.”

I said, “That’s exactly what I meant. I’m saying goodbye.”

And I did.

That’s the part I still sit with.

Not the fight. Not even the ending.

The moment right before it tipped. The moment I could feel it coming.

And the reality that you can see something clearly, try to stop it, and still not be able to stop where it goes.

My late husband George was an attorney. He understood discernment.

He used to call me the blonde pitbull. I could argue a point to the nth degree. Stay in it. Push it. Win it.

He was different. He knew when enough became too much.

I didn’t always understand the difference.

It took me years to shake that nickname. If I’m being honest, I probably carried it until the day he passed. Every now and then I still hear it. From an old friend. A former colleague.

The blonde pitbull.

It served me well.

Corporate finance. Legal negotiations. Holding the line.

I spent years in boardrooms across the world. Sometimes thirty lawyers across the table, going at it for hours, well into the night, until night turned into morning and a few hours of sleep felt optional.

The deals were complex. A fleet of cruise ships for a household name. Manufacturing facilities for some of the largest automobile companies in the world.

I sat at those tables and didn’t let others finish sentences.

When the objections were thrown, I came back with a rebounding punch.

I got paid well for it.

And my clients walked away grateful.

You had to be fierce. Especially as a woman.

I didn’t just want to win. I wanted the last word.

To close a thing the way you close a deal. Every point understood. Every party agreed. Everyone signed off and clear.

But fierceness doesn’t translate. Not to the people you love.

There’s no signature page. No final set of documents where everyone agrees to all the terms. Some things don’t close. And the harder I tried to button them up, the worse they got.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand, slowly, and not by choice.

George wasn’t teaching me discernment. He couldn’t. He was showing me something he didn’t have the power to hand over.

I had to learn it the only way it can be learned.

The hard way.

It comes from loss. From the conversations that didn’t end well and can’t be redone. You earn it by saying too much, once, to someone who mattered, and watching what it costs.

Recently I learned that someone said something about me they’d never say to my face.

Something I wasn’t meant to hear.

But I did.

A friend shared it with me. Not to wound me, but to help me make sense of something I hadn’t been able to understand.

And here’s what I noticed in myself.

I don’t need to confront the person who said it. They don’t know I know. And I’m going to leave it that way.

Not out of fear. I’ve spent my life in harder conversations. It’s that there’s nothing to resolve. No version of the conversation that closes clean.

Some things don’t translate to closure.

Things have been said. They can’t be unsaid. The hurt is done.

Apologies can circulate. But the sentiment lingers.

Like the smell of smoke after a forest fire. It seeps into your clothes. Your skin. Your hair. You’re reminded at every turn. It lessens. But it remains.

So I’m not going to confront them. Not because I’m carrying the sword of blame…I let that go. I don’t want to live my life weighed down by swords of any kind.

It’s that sometimes the smarter thing is to walk away. Not completely. Maybe just enough.

Not out of playing it safe.

Out of playing it smart.

I don’t want to be the family member on the phone. The one who got the last word.

And I don’t want to be the woman in the checkout line who leaves a snarky comment behind for the rude clerk. The one who has to even the score with a stranger she’ll never see again, just to walk out feeling right.

Same fierceness. Different sizes.

I’ve been her, too. While I may have gotten the last word, I never feel good about myself after.

The need to finish it. To make it land. To be sure they understood.

Words don’t come back.

Not every sentence needs to be finished.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. Each week, I write about the patterns we don’t see until we name them.

I send two pieces a week. Tuesday and Sunday.

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I didn’t need reminding. It’s not a day I will forget.

But his previous pharmacy texted me a greeting. Confusing my number as his and no longer aware that it’s been over three years since he picked up a prescription.

In grief, those are the hardest moments.

The expired future.

The things you thought you would do together. Have together. Share together. The moments you thought you would celebrate, together.

A date. An event. A calendar notification.

One more thing to grieve.

But the expired future doesn’t only come from losing a person.

Yesterday I was on a coaching call with a young man. Successful by every external measure. An impressive title with a reputable company. Financially secure. A beautiful home. But underneath that “American Dream” hides an unhappy 33 year old who quietly admitted he hates his job, doesn’t love the city he lives in, and recently ended things with a remarkable woman he loves deeply but felt uncertain about family and forever.

“I’ve been going through a really dark period,” he said.

I asked him why he called it dark.

He paused.

“I guess it’s grief.”

“Yes. I have been grieving.”

He is grieving.

Not a person. Not a relationship.

Himself.

Another expired future.

The man he would have been without a broken childhood. The man he would have become if he hadn’t been abused as a child.

A version of himself he will never know.

One that was taken from him.

One he was robbed of by another.

That grief has no funeral. No casserole train. No anniversary card.

But it is grief.

Not just his.

We all have those parts of ourselves.

The choices we made. The different adventures we chose. The ones we look back at and wonder about.

We should give ourselves permission to grieve those too.

Grief doesn’t need a doomsday label. “Dark” makes it sound oppressive.

Grief doesn’t need a modifier.

The expired future is grief.

We should have permission to sit in it. Learn from it. Let the emotions run their course without labeling them.

I am not an expert in anything.

No license. No degree. No permission to prescribe.

I just know grief. I know it in my bones. I know it in my heart. I know it in my mind when it spins wildly out of control and lands me in tears greater than any tissue box can absorb.

And I don’t know many people who don’t know it.

I know people who have experienced loss and try to run from it. I was one of them. I ran ten marathons through sweat and tears. The grief I ran from then is not the same grief I know now.

I cry for George and the life we shared.

I grieve the friends I lost who didn’t understand how I could move forward and remarry. The family who, in the midst of the celebration, were still living in the wake of the first and unable to meet me where I was at.

There are losses inside the loss.

A college basketball coach said something to me not long after George died. I’ve come back to it more times than I can count.

Forward is a direction.

Not healing. Not closure. Not moving on.

Just forward.

And as I told that young man yesterday:

Grief isn’t something that has an ending. There is no fixing.

And two things can be true.

You can still be grieving one thing and learn to love, have, and hold another.

He’s slowly realizing this for himself now.

George’s nickname was Messy. In fact, that’s all I called him or sometimes just The Mess.

I’m learning to live both with and without The Mess in my life.

Forward is a direction.

I’m still walking it.

Always EDITing,

Leslie

P.S. Whatever your expired future is, you’re allowed to sit in it today.

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P.P.S. Each week, I write about the patterns we don’t see until we name them. Motherhood. Marriage. Grief. The roles we keep playing.

I send two pieces a week. Tuesday and Sunday. This week Tuesday arrived early. I like to think of it as a HBD to The Mess.

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A Law & Order type accusation.

The story itself isn’t worth retelling. It feels like drama. Not worthy of air space.

But in the moment, I was cast into a role. I wanted to defend myself.

I didn’t.

Then a friend called me this week. Spiraling. She’d been similarly accused, something she’d said, twisted by the time it landed.

Word-slide.

Like that age-old game of operator.

What got back wasn’t anything close to what she said.

She wanted to rush to the table to defend herself. To explain. To set the record straight.

She too had been cast into a role.

Persecutor.

Here’s the part nobody says out loud.

We don’t negotiate these roles with the people we’re in them with. We assign them. They are assigned to us. We rotate through them. Silently. In our own stories. In theirs.

Then we wonder why everyone seems miscast. Why we are so misunderstood. Why we are being talked about when we aren’t even in the room.

A few months earlier, I was rereading Daring Greatly. The section on parenting. On shame. On the quiet ways we pass it down without meaning to.

I didn’t ease into the realization. It hit all at once.

I have been quietly rescuing my daughter.

For years.

We often joke that the umbilical cord was never fully cut. The reality is, I never let go.

I have stepped in too quickly. Buffered her from consequences. Made things easier when they were supposed to be hard.

Every time I did that, I was telling her something underneath it: that she couldn’t handle it on her own. That the world was happening to her. That she needed me to make it right. Isn’t that what a parent is supposed to do… ease the pain?

In reality, I had cast her as the victim.

I had been trying to rescue her… for a lifetime. Hers.

The accusation I opened with is different.

The hardest one. Because it’s a role I never took. It was assigned.

A result of word-slide. Or more simply someone wanting to shift the narrative. To make me wrong. Make me the villain. It’s hard to know exactly. Ultimately, I was cast as the persecutor.

You can’t audition out of it. You can only choose not to perform.

There is another role in this world of drama. The one I almost sat in.

I was the first one to say I love you in my relationship with my husband.

When I said it, I told him not to respond.

I didn’t know then what I know now. That he didn’t come from a family that traded those words easily. That waiting for him to say it back would have drowned me.

I would have spent the silence writing a story where his pause was about me.

When really, it was just about him.

That’s playing victim. Thankfully, I didn’t jump into the role then.

But I’ve taken it plenty of other times. When a text goes unanswered. When a friend goes quiet at dinner. When someone I love seems distant for reasons I can’t pin down.

The first thing I do is make it mean something about me.

That’s the trap.

These roles aren’t real. They’re casting decisions. We make them without telling anyone. And then we play them like they were given to us.

We are all writing each other into stories we never agreed to be in.

The rescuer doesn’t ask the victim if she wants to be saved. The victim doesn’t ask the persecutor if he meant to wound. The persecutor usually doesn’t even know she’s been cast.

We just play the parts.

We project, we react, we wound, we defend, we apologize, we placate.

And the whole time, we are the main character of a story we believe is reality.

The triangle isn’t a trap because the roles are inescapable.

It’s a trap because we keep showing up to play them.

When my friend called me this week, spiraling, ready to rush to the table and defend herself, that’s what I told her.

The moment you defend, it will be word-slide again.

It will escalate. It will travel. And the next time it comes back around, you won’t be the persecutor anymore. You’ll be the victim. The one they’re talking about when you’re not in the room.

If you let it go, there will be no more oxygen for it to carry on.

But the hardest part is giving up defending yourself.

You have to let someone keep believing a thing about you that isn’t true. You have to let the story travel without you in it. You have to be misunderstood and not correct it.

Someone used to say to me: you cannot defend what isn’t real.

I never understood it then.

I do now.

You don’t fix the triangle.

You step out of it.

And what’s been sitting with me since I started writing this is that I owe my daughter an apology.

For casting her into a role she never asked to be in.

Always EDITing,
Leslie

P.S. — Tired of the drama? Of defending yourself? You can’t step out of a role you can’t see.

Below is a five-step worksheet for finding the role you play, the role you’ve been cast into, and the one small action that moves you out of both.

For the people who no longer want to live in the drama.

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P.P.S. — This is the first worksheet I’ve created to go with an EDIT.

If it lands, I’ll keep building them.

Not just naming the patterns… but giving you a way to step out of them.

Stepping Out Of The Drama Triangle Worksheet

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A five-step worksheet for stepping out of the Drama Triangle. Notice the role you play, the role you've been cast into, and the one small action that moves you out of both. For the people who no longer want to live with drama.

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