Latest / Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden / It's Never Too Late: Taking a Midlife Gap Year with Lindsey Goldstein

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It's Never Too Late: Taking a Midlife Gap Year with Lindsey Goldstein · Butterfly Days w Tami Jorden

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  speaker-0 (00:00.204)
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  This episode, she is so fun to talk to. You are going to have so many connections. This is great. This is a first for butterfly days. We are talking to Lindsay Goldstein, who is a fiction author. You're thinking to yourself, Why are we gonna talk to a fiction author? Get this. She has written a novel about a Gen X woman who takes a gap year. Yep, that's the title of her new book, Gap Year. It's a terrific book.
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  Go get it. You can get it from Amazon and Barnes Noble and walk into your bookstore and order it, whatever you like. But Lindsay Goldstein is the author. Her essays, she's also a writer. Her essays about love and parenting have appeared in the New York Times, Chicago Story Press, Keller, The Sunlight Press. She lives in Irvine, California with her husband, her kids, and a rescue met. The thing that I'm very excited for you is to hear about her debut novel.
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  Gap year. It tells about Jane Greenberg's life unraveling in 48 hours. Her daughter leaves to study abroad, her husband leaves her for another woman, and her boss gives her an ultimatum. And instead of staying stuck, Jane makes a bold decision. She takes her own version of a gap year. She goes to Ecuador to climb a volcano that she once dreamed of summiting others first. Along the way, she finds adventure, friendship, heartbreak.
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  And unexpected opportunities that force her to decide what kind of a life she wants and truly loves, right? She is inspired by her own period of reinvention during the COVID-19 pandemic. So Lindsay's book, Gap Year, is a story of second chances, self-discovery, and the courage to start over. This interview is so cool. And we really talk about a lot of things that
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  We Gen X and Jen Jones crawls can relate to, so I hope you enjoy it. Let me know if you do. Let's get on with this interview. Welcome to my realm. I'm Tammy Jordan, and this is Butterfly Days, the podcast that proves you're not past your prime. You're living in it right now because women don't have expiration dates. Butterfly Days is a celebration of the extraordinary potential of Gen X and Boomer women.
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  speaker-0 (02:18.638)
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  Throughout history, women have shared wisdom to uplift and empower one another. And you're about to learn hard-earned wisdom and best kept secrets from interesting, inspiring women. So if you're ready to embrace your butterfly season with confidence, find joy in the present, and create a legacy that matters, you're in the right place. No more holding back. Let's spread our wings now.
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  speaker-1 (02:44.046)
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  Here we go.
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  speaker-0 (02:49.442)
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  Welcome to my realm. This is Tammy Jordan, and you're listening to Butterfly Days. Today we have author Lindsay Goldstein with us. She has written a remarkable book called Gap Year. The thing that's interesting about this book, about you're thinking, why fiction? Why, why, why? Because that's not what we usually do. But guess what? We're doing it this time because gap year isn't about a college gap year. It's about a woman who took a gap year.
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  Over age fifty, is that correct? Forty five. Close to forty-six. We like it. Okay. So at 46, she took a gap year. So Lindsay Goldstein, welcome to Butterfly Days. We are thrilled to have you and we're dying to know. What should we know about this book?
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  speaker-1 (03:37.176)
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  Well, thank you, Tammy, for having me. So, yes, I actually started writing this book when I was about forty six. So that was why that way. But it's about a woman, Jane, who's forty-six. She is married. She has one child, and that child is going off on more of a traditional gap year to Spain. And on the heels of her leaving, her husband tells her he thinks he's fallen in love with another woman.
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  They've been married 20 years. They didn't really nurture their relationship. You know, they both work, they have a child, things got it. So that's that. And then meanwhile, her boss, so she's a CPA. She took the job more out of practicality. They needed a dual income to support the family. They live in Los Angeles. And her boss,
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  tells her that he's offering her a promotion and he assumes that she will want this promotion. So he's already filled her position. So it's basically a promotion or a resignation. That screw it. In my twenties. She had been a budding ecologist in her twenties and it was her dream to go to the
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  speaker-0 (04:43.307)
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  wow.
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  speaker-1 (04:59.906)
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  Galapagos and Ecuador and climb this volcano, Codopaxi. And so she decides she's gonna go take a gap year of her own. So it's an adult version of a gap year and off she goes.
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  speaker-0 (05:13.772)
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  this it sort of reminds me of if Judy Bloom wrote for women in our demographic now.
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  speaker-1 (05:20.494)
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  She kind of did.
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  speaker-0 (05:23.378)
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  She's kind of coming of age or coming into her own, I guess, is the I mean not that we're not our own by this age, but there's something really beautiful that happens in that perimenopausal period and fully into the end of menopause, I think. You know, you begin to explore and decide, okay, in her case if I'm not a wife, but and for many of us, if I'm not a
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  you know, the mom of a fully dependent child, then who am I? You know, and what's in my tank?
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  speaker-1 (05:55.403)
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  Exactly.
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  Yeah, she decides that she wants to figure out who she's gonna be in this next chapter of her life. So it's a story of reinvention that she wants to, you know, go off and it's partially a reinvention, but it's also a hearkening back to aspects of herself that were buried because she was a life. So yeah. There's that duality to it of who did I used to be? Are there parts of that person that I want to reclaim?
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  And then do I want to be as I move forward? Because she still has plenty of years left of living. Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (06:36.286)
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  She does. I mean, the sand is not out of her hourglass by any means, certainly at that age. I mean, you're actually, if she's got average life expectancy, she's about halfway, right? I'm trying to do the math, which which my husband would say, don't do math, you know, in your head. Someone could get hurt. and he is not wrong. But she's approximately halfway through her life. And just by logic, that makes a lot of sense to
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  kind of take stock at that point and think about who we are. And, you know, it's not just who we are, but it's who we have become based on what life offered us and how we chose to show up for that. That's really a rich place to go into for each of us. And know, you know, this is what's in my tank now. Because
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  Realizing that you still have so much of your life ahead of you and much of it, thank you, modern medicine, thank you, modern nutrition, thank you, everything modern, or many things modern, I guess. You're gonna live healthier longer. There is more that you can do. You are not used up, you are not, you know, Nora Desmond, then it's over for you, Sunset Boulevard actress.
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  speaker-1 (07:44.246)
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  Mm-hmm.
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  speaker-1 (07:54.414)
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  So that's sort of what I wanted to impart by writing this story is it's never too late. You can constantly reinvent yourself. I don't think that there is an age at which you should say, I give up, I'm just laying all my cards down and it's over for me. I don't think that happens or it shouldn't have to happen. So 'cause I think a lot of people do say, I can't do that. I'm too old. Well Yeah.
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  I guess it depends what it is. Are you going to swim the English Channel? I don't know. Maybe maybe
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  speaker-0 (08:28.014)
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  Might be too old. Might.
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  speaker-1 (08:30.766)
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  Sure, there's people doing it at that age. Yeah. But nevertheless, it's not too late. So don't think that it is.
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  speaker-0 (08:39.766)
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  Love that. I love the hopefulness of it, but I think it's an honest hopefulness. I think it isn't too late for us at this point. And declining hormones and all of the attendant things that go with it, they don't stop your ability to do what's most important to you when you get clear on what that is. And I think that gets slightly easier when you're clear about who you are now.
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  speaker-1 (09:06.25)
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  Exactly. Exactly.
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  speaker-0 (09:07.778)
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  Right. And a lot of who you are, I like what you're pointing out because a lot of who you are has its roots in your youngster self. But of course, the years will have refined or repressed or developed better who that person is now and what you have to offer now in your character's
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  case in Jane's case, she has a lot of blow ups that happen that of fractures and and endings that and there's a certain amount of grief I think with that that go with that. How does she navigate that or how do you see that in general and then you imbued it in the character?
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  speaker-1 (09:46.83)
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  So she does sort of go through the stages of grief. So in the days she's very angry. I mean, she's numb, but then she's angry. But she also realizes they're co-parenting this blossoming adult. And she doesn't want her to feel that tension between the two of them. And that's what she makes it clear that that's very important to her. And I think through that from seeing other people getting a divorce and
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  hitting, you know, one parent against with the children. I don't think that serves anybody at the end of the day. So Jane is very adamant that they will have this front of, you know, even if it's a facade at first, which ultimately it's not in her story, amicable friendship so that they can leave their child together. But she, you know, for her, you know
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  speaker-0 (10:23.617)
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  No.
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  speaker-1 (10:44.8)
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  It's not that she's running away by going to Ecuador. It's a running to something, running to herself, because that was kind of the last moment that she had in her mind before she jumped in with two feet as a mother and a wife. And so it's a hearkening back, but she also feels strongly that if she can summit this.
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  volcano, Koto Paxi, that she will be able to overcome any obstacle in her life. It's just it's a metaphor for life's obstacles that are thrown at you. Get over that, then she can do anything. So I
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  speaker-0 (11:23.566)
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  I love that it's a volcano because you know, a lot of people would have said summit a mountain and that's terrific, but that it's a volcano for some reason just seems to get at the deeper passion and the feeling and the I don't know, the tumultuous everything of climbing, you know, of summiting.
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  speaker-1 (11:44.366)
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  But I think it also gives her something to focus on. It's her grounded, pretty brutal training. Very high altitude, I think that's almost twenty thousand feet. She's got a bowl and that's keeping her focused on what you know, something other than her fractured marriage and the fact that empty nester. So
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  speaker-0 (12:14.146)
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  Naval gazing, unhelpful sometimes. I sort of like what you're talking about in a pivot here because what I've heard you say is when you're considering a powerful pivot, a pivot that's actually gonna leverage you forward, it needs to be not running away, but towards to aim at something. And I like that in thinking about how you use it for the character, that this goal becomes mission.
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  For her. She has a goal, she has a mission that she can move towards. So that's not running away from, but looking forward in a manner and then assigning something that's a goal or a mission. And then being able to marshal yourself to move towards it. And I don't even know if you know it at the time or not, but just that whole the process of moving towards that goal is where you have space to figure out some of the knots that.
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  Are still in here in your own heart or head, I guess.
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  speaker-1 (13:15.798)
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  That's exactly what happens. She new friendships. She had never fostered close female friendships because she worked constantly and when she's working, she was raising her child and trying to at least initially spend some time with her husband. But these are new things for her that she's learning skills that she didn't have before. So friendship there is
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  a little bit of romance in there, which for me served the purpose of demonstrating to her that she could love again. That wasn't embittered by this experience and still had it in her heart to love someone else someday. Yeah. yeah. And so I also have her stay, which some people question, but I there was a rationale to it that she's youth hostile while she's there.
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  And the reason that I set it up that way was twofold. So one, I thought it'd be very boring to read about a woman who goes there and just stays in an apartment by herself. It it's harder to interact with a lot of other people right by yourself. But two, that in and of itself, there's all sorts of thing hurdles she has to get over. Yeah. Forty six year old woman sharing space with much mostly younger people. Yeah. So there's
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  Four beds in a room, she shared a whole bedroom.
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  speaker-0 (14:45.026)
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  So she must live in community at that g the hostile environment, that's the prerequisite, right?
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  speaker-1 (14:51.83)
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  And so it's it's a whole new skill set.
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  speaker-0 (14:55.83)
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  I love that. I mean, I've gotta stop saying I love that fifty thousand times because I love so much about this beck that I'll just say it constantly and probably drive the listeners up a tree. But I think that this is so cool. You said she learns to be I don't know if she learns to be a friend or the value of friendship or how you you frame that. But I think that's kind of a powerful thing that needs to foremost of us expand in midlife is to have
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  Loving, intelligent, supportive relationships. It doesn't have to be with other women, but I think the ones with other women are really important for us. Do you is that part of what drove you to give her that component in her story?
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  speaker-1 (15:42.998)
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  Yeah, because I think it's funny, I have this conversation with my daughter who's fifteen now all the time that it'd be so hard to make friends at your age. 'Cause we recently moved about an hour south. And so I had I mean, obviously I'm still friends with some of the people I where we used to live, but I had to make a whole new friend group, as my daughter terms it.
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  She's very observant and she observed that I work very hard at it. I don't have a million friends, but the ones that I have, I work hard at being a friend because so important. Like you said in the very beginning, we talk about all these things that we're going through. Our bodies are changing, our minds are changing. Yeah. And you have to be able to talk to other women about this. And it's something that I noticed, I mean
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  Thankfully my parents are alive and healthy and well. But I noticed my mom never really had like she did here and there, but she never had many close friends. And I think it was because she prioritized, she had four kids and she us. And it's not that I don't prioritize my kids, but it's like a balance of making sure that there's a lane that I can stay in of my own life.
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  speaker-0 (16:56.024)
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  No.
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  speaker-1 (17:04.28)
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  So that one day when my kids are gone, I'm sitting there wondering what to do with myself. Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (17:10.912)
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  Well, because you can't make new old friends, you know? And so it's wise to develop those relationships when it's natural that they could occur. And often that will be during child raising years. So yeah, it's one more thing to add to the balance, but if you really like good people, it adds to your energy level, not depletes, you know.
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  speaker-1 (17:36.096)
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  Yeah. So that was for me for Jane. It was fun her a friend because they're not talking about child rearing or anything, but they're both have the same goal of climbing how they meet. And so to have the same goal in common and be able to go through the same process which is grueling, it brings them very close and then they wind up talking about important
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  speaker-0 (18:05.228)
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  The deeper. let's be honest. That's life, right? That is exactly how it works. You have something in common and that's the on-ramp to that highway of much richer connection. And sharing it. You know something? You said an interesting thing. I do notice that there's a certain chunk of what I would call our mom's generation that believed family and your spouse.
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  speaker-1 (18:06.712)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (18:34.536)
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  were primary and may or may not have developed support relationships. And I think we've all seen women who when the family grows up as it must, then they don't have much left. That's always a little bit heartbreaking to me. But I'm pairing that with a secondary thought. I recently had a spoke to a woman who's got a her specialty. She wrote a book about introversion. And we had a conversation about that just because someone is an introvert
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  Does not mean they don't need a few loving, supportive, enriching, inspiring, fun friendships. Yeah. You know, that it this isn't an introvert, extrovert. Maybe the, maybe the amount of friends you have will differ depending on your personality and introversion, extroversion factors like that. But it's really important, you know, to have friendships.
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  speaker-1 (19:30.636)
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  Yes. yeah. I mean I to your point. So I'm the baby of the family and so I lived in Ecuador for a year when I was eighteen. And college and accepted their acceptance and then said I'll see you in a year and I went to Ecuador as an exchange student. And I'll never forget so whenever my mom would cut a pineapple, she would she had a very it's funny because I don't cut mine.
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  the same way at all, but she had a very particular way of cutting it so that the mat perfectly, but there would still be bits on it that were edible and always leave it for me on a plate so I could nibble it while she whatever. Yeah. Called me, which we didn't speak that often because it was expensive to call once. Remember we maybe spoke once a month and so you know, I don't know if we had a schedule, but
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  speaker-0 (20:18.862)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (20:26.304)
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  A call came in and it wasn't time for our call. And one of the women who like there was a cook in the house and she came and got me and she said, It's I think it's your mother. So I thought something terrible had happened. So I run to what is it? What? And my mom just says, I cut the pineapple and you didn't come. And I was swobbing.
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  speaker-0 (20:49.752)
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  Ha ha ho
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  speaker-1 (20:54.838)
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  And she said, I know, and that was all she wanted to tell me. Like my mom's not a a very emotional person, so I think she didn't want me to hear her emotional. And so she's like Well she just But I saw her really flounder in a way for a number of figures what to do with herself and she wound up figuring it out, you know, she all sorts of things, but it was really hard and she really didn't at that time in particular, I don't think
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  speaker-0 (21:16.59)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (21:24.056)
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (21:24.756)
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  friends. There was just you know, and had even one or two people to go through this with made her life so much easier, you know.
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  speaker-0 (21:33.698)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (21:37.086)
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  yeah. Just the power of connection and all of the now all of the data on depression and the critical nature of that relationships, having healthy relationships is as important for longevity as a lot of exercising is, or it's more important than not smoking. Like what? Which I'm not giving anybody permission to smoke on that, just so we're clear. I've got friends I can smoke.
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  speaker-1 (22:06.478)
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  Yes. So they have done a lot of studies on adult loneliness and how that impair your quality of life to the point where you might pass away sooner. So
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  speaker-0 (22:12.225)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (22:17.73)
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  Yeah, it can actually shorten lifespan, which is bizarro. And yet, I don't know. I think on some level, intuitively we know it. Women are social creatures, whether an introvert or an extrovert, that was the conversation that that woman and I were having. You're still social in that there's something powerful about connecting with someone else, generally whose integrity that you trust, and just to show up for each other and to connect on.
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  how life looks for you or how you think about it and to be able to, you know, receive that or and to share it.
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  speaker-1 (22:53.9)
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  Yes, I think that relatability, it's what you're thinking. And we need that validation. I'm Yeah, I'm not crazy that I feel this will that feel this way. That's why I I love hearing from anyone, whether they know me or they don't. I related to much and that connection, it makes your world feel so much smaller, which I like.
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  speaker-0 (22:56.546)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (23:01.026)
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  We do.
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  Well yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (23:19.414)
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  Yeah, I do too. I think most of us land in that place. Although in a hot minute and what you were just talking about, my brain went to remember the days of MCI and Sprint and I don't know if it was ATT or what the other one was. And it was if you waited till after ten o'clock at night, it dropped to ten cents a minute and the all of the planning. And it made me think if there are things that I'm glad about this, you know, digital world now, one of them is that we don't have to do that anymore.
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  speaker-1 (23:49.112)
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  Well, I will tell you a funny story apropos to that. So actually, I would say he's my best friend. I met him when I I so I went back to Ecuador for two subsequent summers. And the last one was when I was twenty one and he was hostel. And I got there were three other bunks in my room. So I always had new roommates. But I loved it to these new friends. So one day I've been out and I came back.
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  And there was a guy lying on I think I had the top bunk because I didn't want anyone sitting on my bed ever. I love that. he was lying on the bottom bunk and he didn't say hello, nothing. He just looked at me and he said, Aren't you kind of young to be traveling by yourself? And I said, I'm twenty one, why? How old are you? And he said, I'm gonna be twenty three in two weeks. And I said, okay. And so we're becoming friends and it was one of those things, you know.
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  speaker-0 (24:42.86)
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  Lotted all.
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  speaker-1 (24:47.678)
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  He likes women, but like we went past that point of friendship where platonic. And I most days of the week, my husband at first, remember he said to me, So let me get this straight. Your best friend is a man and I said, Yes. And said, And you've never dated and I said no. And he said, Okay, I guess I'm just gonna have to wrap my head around this but
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  speaker-0 (24:52.908)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-0 (25:11.498)
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  Your husband points for him.
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  speaker-1 (25:13.762)
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  There was a reason I started telling you about him and now I forget.
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  speaker-0 (25:16.812)
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  Isn't this the best part of being in this age range? C I A T and T, does that help you?
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  speaker-1 (25:19.843)
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  Ha ha.
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  speaker-1 (25:23.394)
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  Yes. So when I first got my first cell phone, I got so Nick is his name. So he had Pac Bell, which is now AT and T. Yes. Yes. He said if you get Pac Bell the same plan, then all of our calls to each other are Yes. And so I got Pac Bell. And so when I got, you know, I started dating my now husband and engaged and he started looking at my plan.
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  And once we married and he said, So it has I think at that point had become AT and T and he said, So I guess I have to have ATT also. So we're on the same family plan 'cause he had been on Verizon or something and I said I guess. So he switched and so later I think our rates had gone up and he said, I don't think we need to have the same plan as Nick anymore and I said I said, I think Nick switched plans years ago. Like a way to
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  Yeah. So why are and I said, I don't know, it's just it goes in why. You do stop being Yeah. So I remember that's
• 1:45
  speaker-0 (26:27.63)
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  You do, yeah.
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  speaker-0 (26:34.19)
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  So I forgot about that we can all be on the same plan thing. You know, it's so this is a goopy side thing, but I think luckily for us, we're all talking to women who would get it. It's funny when you think about it how if you didn't stay in the same place and your friends or family lived far away, prior to this sort of technology, you had the occasional phone call or before that.
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  The letter, which is all lovely in its own quaint way, but it really began to nurture friendships not necessarily physically close when we could stay in touch with each other across miles, you know.
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  speaker-1 (27:21.742)
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  Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, look, it's been thirty one years and I'm still friends with Nick. Other than for two years we both lived in San Francisco.
• 1:49
  speaker-0 (27:32.046)
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  Wow. Yeah. Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (27:34.04)
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  Serendipitous. So yeah. But anyway
• 1:51
  speaker-0 (27:38.286)
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  Beautiful. It's beautiful to use what we have to continue to nurture things. But friendships are important. That was sort of our bottom line here that it can be a motivator, but it can also be the safety net and the cattle prod and soil.
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  speaker-1 (27:56.074)
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  That actually in a way can make your marriage healthier. Like I my dad was the only gluten my mom could talk to and he wasn't always there. And you know, because he's tired, but he was an O V G Y N so he was hardly home for years. And so with friends, these friendships that I think our generation is better at cultivating, you have all these other outlets, and so you're stuck plus pressure. You don't have
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  speaker-0 (28:12.526)
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  Yeah out.
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  speaker-0 (28:24.6)
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  Yeah.
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  speaker-1 (28:25.279)
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  Thing for that person.
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  speaker-0 (28:27.502)
• 1:56
  that's brilliant. And I had a woman a long, long time ago say to me, Don't ever try to make your man your girlfriend. And I was like, Because part of my earlier life experience included a philosophy that your husband should be everything. And she said, No, no, no, he should not be your girlfriends. And I was like, Well, why not? I was, you know, I must what on earth? And she said, because the way that women relate to each other is different.
• 1:57
  And it's great whatever your romantic partner brings to you. And it can be a life partner and you can share a mission and all of the things. But there is a part of you that needs to connect in a way that if you make him bend to fit that, it'll diminish what you have. Let him be him, and you find other women generally, can't be a guy in your case, but other people in your life that
• 1:58
  nurture and feed you independently and then come back together and you end up with a stronger whole. And over time, I don't know about you, but over time I have seen that borne out that women who required that their husbands be their everything either ended up with holding on to nothing because that didn't stay, or ended up, I don't know, like it wasn't he always disappointed her.
• 1:59
  Is it of any interest to you to talk about writing fiction for a Gen X audience? Or is that one that you're like,
• 2:00
  speaker-1 (30:01.408)
• 2:00
  No, sure. I mean
• 2:01
  speaker-0 (30:03.608)
• 2:01
  Tell me about it. Like why why how is it different or similar? Would you like about it? Like it sounds kind of fun actually because you're talking to your own people.
• 2:02
  speaker-1 (30:15.406)
• 2:02
  So for me, I actually started out writing a YA novel and realized I have no idea how that generation speaks. And it just didn't feel authentic. Yes. So when I started writing Gap Year, I aged up my character. And it's funny because I started writing this, I guess it was around 2021, 2022. And even then
• 2:03
  The trends were still far younger for your protagonist. And so people would read and say, I just feel like you should make her younger, maybe 35, you know, like it's not going to be as relatable. And I said, Yeah, but she's not going to have necessarily a kid going off out of the nest at that age. I also want to make it realistic for a woman who is a professional and had a child and, you know, whatnot. So
• 2:04
  speaker-0 (31:03.906)
• 2:04
  Yeah.
• 2:05
  speaker-1 (31:11.27)
• 2:05
  One thing I will say is that I have read articles and I've seen so many things on social media that there is a whole audience craving a book or more books about this generation and women at this point in their life. Because I think even in the last five years, I feel like
• 2:06
  Women are more apt to talk about what they're going through as far as perimenopause and menopause. And if they are going through a rocky portion of their relationship, even if it doesn't necessarily lead to divorce, all these things are being more discussed among peers. And so people want to read about women going through similar things. They don't want a girl falling in love for the first time.
• 2:07
  speaker-0 (31:58.08)
• 2:07
  Yeah, that's great. That's a thing, and that's great, but it seems to me we've got plenty of that and there is room to have a richer, fuller female expression and experience.
• 2:08
  speaker-1 (32:12.14)
• 2:08
  And I think that even television has sort of paved the way for that as well. There's a lot more shows with older protagonists or movies and their second chance love stories. And I think how well these are doing because let's be honest, like these are the people who are reading, these are the people who are probably streaming something, you know, like we have the interests, but I think particularly the readers, that's yeah.
• 2:09
  speaker-0 (32:34.935)
• 2:09
  Yes.
• 2:10
  speaker-1 (32:40.824)
• 2:10
  Still reading. We're not distracted as much by our phones and scrolling and all of that kind of stuff. So I I think reading is making a comeback because because of all these influencers and things, you know, people telling other people to read is people to read.
• 2:11
  speaker-0 (32:47.8)
• 2:11
  We are still reading.
• 2:12
  speaker-0 (33:02.338)
• 2:12
  Yeah. Well, I mean, how good is that that we can encourage stories about this part of the experience? And I am not surprised that the knee-jerk response I I I'm gonna attribute no evil motive to it, but I think in a culture that is it's youth obsessed and it's you know, values young, beautiful, sexy, consumable humans.
• 2:13
  I love what you're doing because as best I can tell, Lindsay, you are helping not only women see themselves in literature, and that's freaking important. We need Gen X voices. We need Jen Jones voices. And I love that. But it also just continues to elevate that women retain value and that we're compelling long past just being good looking. You know what I mean?
• 2:14
  I mean not that we're not good looking now, th I didn't mean that, but I mean we're you know what I mean?
• 2:15
  speaker-1 (34:02.264)
• 2:15
  We're layered. There's lots we're Yes. So yeah, it's the whole peeling an onion. You keep getting grooves and hopefully they don't make you cry. But
• 2:16
  speaker-0 (34:09.025)
• 2:16
  Yeah.
• 2:17
  speaker-0 (34:14.474)
• 2:17
  Sometimes that flushes your system. It's not the worst thing to cry at.
• 2:18
  speaker-1 (34:18.438)
• 2:18
  No. no, no, no, no. I got over that when I got pregnant because everything I'd watch like tea commercial and cry and yeah. But it's very hard to cry around my teenage daughter though. My son could care less. He's almost eleven, but my daughter she's very emotional. It almost seems to perturb her if she sees me be emotional. Like she'll be Are you crying?
• 2:19
  speaker-0 (34:38.714)
• 2:19
  Yeah.
• 2:20
  speaker-0 (34:45.91)
• 2:20
  Yeah. I know that is funny. I'm not sure entirely what that is about, but yeah, yeah, I think so. But I think it's important that we be able to show up as women, as humans, in all of our complexity. And I think that it's beautiful when we're reflected back in art and in writing and in, you know, all of the other things that we
• 2:21
  are a part of the tapestry, the voice, you know, our instrument in the symphony plays. You know?
• 2:22
  speaker-1 (35:17.718)
• 2:22
  Well, I think it goes back to that relatability. And then also I think a lot of I don't know if it's just women or all people felt like you get to a certain age and you become invisible. And we are becoming visible again. I and it's in literature, but in all the ways, you know is marketing more towards women of a certain age because that's a whole niche that people haven't targeted. So you can
• 2:23
  speaker-0 (35:36.886)
• 2:23
  All the ways.
• 2:24
  speaker-1 (35:47.362)
• 2:24
  you know, get people to recognize that we're still human. We're still here.
• 2:25
  speaker-0 (35:54.124)
• 2:25
  W not only are we still human, we're still interesting and fun. And oddly, when you market at young people, you're marketing at a a group whose resources are far less than what ours are. Are you you're missing a g get this marketers, y'all are missing a golden opportunity if the only thing that you were aiming at us was, you know, skincare products and I don't even
• 2:26
  old agey things, whatever those are. Please, no, we are very interested in understanding ourselves. And and Gen X is, I don't think we're the first generations. I think that's going to come with Jen Jones or maybe even later boomers. We began to see and understand ourselves through film as well as through literature during our lifetimes. And so, you know, Breakfast Club, you know, all the the St. Elba's Fire, the Friends, the
• 2:27
  All of these different things we have seen and tried to understand ourselves, it's only natural that we are now looking for ways to explore this part of the experience. And it's as valid and beautiful as anybody else's.
• 2:28
  speaker-1 (37:01.964)
• 2:28
  Yes. And I think you'll see more and more books with I know the most famous one that came out this year was Miranda July's All Four. I don't know if you read that not. I did it. I don't know that I loved it, but I very much appreciated what she was doing.
• 2:29
  speaker-0 (37:20.13)
• 2:29
  Yeah, yeah. I love that. And I love what I really love about your book is that you're exploring the pivots, completing that chapter of motherhood where you have home dependent children and seg into something else and really looking at something that Butterfly Days always looks at, which is what do you still have in your tank? Who have you made yourself to be? Do you like that? Do you love yourself?
• 2:30
  And how can you use that love to mine or modify or improve what you've made yourself to be? So now you can control how you use that gift, that talent, that ability, that treasure, whatever it is, to craft another awesome chapter. We are not over. Maybe, maybe previous generations they were. We're not.
• 2:31
  speaker-1 (38:17.998)
• 2:31
  Absolutely. And I I see it all the time of women reinventing themselves and yeah, you know, all of the sub stacks I read and people I follow, a lot of them are fifty and over and seeing all the things that people are doing and on to and it's exciting. It makes there is a very interesting path all the way to the end.
• 2:32
  speaker-0 (38:37.899)
• 2:32
  It isn't
• 2:33
  speaker-0 (38:44.012)
• 2:33
  Yeah, yeah. And and there's nothing but good in that. There's nothing but upside, I think, in that whole process. I think I think about reinventing in expanding on who you were. It's that self-discovery that continues to happen and go forward. And that element of travel and adventure that you use in this story really it's like one of those areas.
• 2:34
  What do you think it is about travel that's so good for self discovery?
• 2:35
  speaker-1 (39:15.544)
• 2:35
  think that when you travel particularly by yourself, nobody knows who you are. And you can be anyone or anything you want. You can put any face forward. I'm not saying you need to be fake, but you decide as you're traveling that I want to be a ballerina. I'm just throwing that out there. I don't. But let's say you took one class. I'm a ballerina. Whatever it is. Like when I've traveled
• 2:36
  Now I tell people I'm a writer, which is new for me because I've been in the last call it ten years or so of my life. And so I just think it gives you license to project forward anything that you want within reason, but have to be married to whatever preconceived notion people at home have of you, nobody has. So you can change the script.
• 2:37
  speaker-0 (39:57.88)
• 2:37
  Yeah.
• 2:38
  speaker-0 (40:08.044)
• 2:38
  Isn't that remarkable?
• 2:39
  Yeah. Well, and everything smells different and looks different and tastes different and it sounds different. And I don't know why, but something about the way the human animal is wired, that kind of opens the cage door, you know, to maybe explore other parts or other potentials that you want to know about yourself or about the world.
• 2:40
  speaker-1 (40:37.324)
• 2:40
  And it's not only that, but I think, you know, when you're home with surrounded by familiar people, they know all the stories. So even if they're, you know, stories that happened recently, but now you get to go away and meet new people and tell them the stories and it reframes you, you know, in a different light. I personally enjoy that because I am a storyteller and there's
• 2:41
  My life that I love that the people in my life have heard too many times. Yeah.
• 2:42
  speaker-0 (41:08.736)
• 2:42
  Now you get a new audience.
• 2:43
  speaker-1 (41:10.176)
• 2:43
  I guess yeah, I have a new audience. I get to tell them and maybe the story comes out slightly differently. Yes.
• 2:44
  speaker-0 (41:16.694)
• 2:44
  Wonder of that, like the kaleidoscope of the retell of the story. I'm gonna guess you share my sentiment on this, that there's something really important about how we understand our stories because it builds the lens by which we see the world and understand it and and have reason to hope, perhaps. But when you have to retell it to somebody else, sometimes it's like twisting the kaleidoscope and you see this totally different piece.
• 2:45
  And it just unlocks something else that can be richer and fuller about the experience. Sometimes it lets something go. Sometimes it brings some more forgiveness. Sometimes it brings some grace for the other people that were in the story. But there's something so powerful about hearing your story again and then maybe seeing something a little bit more that new person.
• 2:46
  notices or takes it differently that gives you the opportunity to upgrade.
• 2:47
  speaker-1 (42:17.592)
• 2:47
  think in addition to that, I think that there's a level of honesty when your town doesn't know you because there's no judgment. You know, there's no reason to judge or feel like you might be judged because they don't know you. So tell the story and be a hundred percent honest. And I found myself telling people when I travel that I don't things that maybe I didn't I've never told anyone. Yeah.
• 2:48
  speaker-0 (42:45.07)
• 2:48
  Is it safe? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:49
  speaker-1 (42:47.554)
• 2:49
  That story's gonna stay with them and they don't know you, so they're not thinking, my god, I can't believe you know, they're just listening. especially if you're going to another country with another culture, back to that perspective. Their perspective is completely different. And so perspective, hearing another take on it or another a different culture. So
• 2:50
  speaker-0 (43:04.47)
• 2:50
  Yeah.
• 2:51
  speaker-0 (43:11.352)
• 2:51
  Yeah. Well plus when you know somebody over time, you know their stories, which is a powerful gift. But the clip of that is when you travel, you also in the telling of the stories you're exchanging and you get to hear about an experience that you probably didn't imagine.
• 2:52
  speaker-1 (43:30.326)
• 2:52
  Right. yeah.
• 2:53
  speaker-0 (43:31.96)
• 2:53
  Very good for us.
• 2:54
  speaker-1 (43:34.124)
• 2:54
  Absolutely. It's why I mean I love I'll take the opportunity to go anywhere. My a few years ago, it was right before COVID started. My mother at the time was 82. And my dad had gone to Africa a few years before that. And she said, I really want to go back to this other part of Africa. And she said, Your father doesn't want to go with me. He it's too far. And she said, If I pay for everything
• 2:55
  But I'm giving you a year notice so that you can figure out the kids and the dog and all the things. She said, Can you go with me? It's three weeks. And I said, A hundred percent. I am not passing up on that opportunity. And it was one of the best trips I've ever taken. A, I love every minute in Africa, but also my mom and I got to spend time together that we hadn't spent together since I was very little.
• 2:56
  speaker-0 (44:21.518)
• 2:56
  Yeah.
• 2:57
  speaker-0 (44:26.926)
• 2:57
  'Cause you're the youngest, so
• 2:58
  speaker-1 (44:28.238)
• 2:58
  And so there were other people there. And then by the time everyone had left home, I was well into my teenage years where maybe I didn't want to get it in the minute with my mom. She told me so many things about herself that I didn't even know. And here she was at 82. And I I mean it was that all said, I tell my kids, you know, any chance you get, if you can go. Go and see something else and experience something else and meet.
• 2:59
  speaker-0 (44:39.096)
• 2:59
  Yeah.
• 3:00
  speaker-1 (44:57.344)
• 3:00
  All the people, and you know, I said if you can stay long enough to learn a language, it gives you an even better perspective. I've been driving them nuts that I want them to do what I did and defer college and take a gap here. And my son is on board so far, but my daughter wanna be older than I called. No one cares if you start college when you're 18 or 19. No one cares. I said, at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. But anyhow.
• 3:01
  speaker-0 (45:25.154)
• 3:01
  That'll be her path. But I love that they have a mom who encourages them to think bigger and broader and to learn to see the world in its myriad kinds of beauty. There is something really powerful about that. And you know, if she if gap year isn't right for her, okay. But their semester abroad, I know, you know, my daughter did that and continues and
• 3:02
  We traveled a lot when our kids were little. It was one of the things that brought my husband and I together is just a love of exploring cultures and the land and music. And I'm just gonna put it out there. I mostly travel to eat other people's food. I'm Texan and we just wanna eat. You know, there's that. But to pass that on to our kids, what a powerful thing to learn to love that, whether you stay a year or you
• 3:03
  Or you just stay two weeks or days. But I would also say, because there are people listening to this, women listening to this, who are gonna be like, Well, I don't have the resources. It is a privilege to be able to travel. We freely admit that, and we're not, you know, putting anybody down if you can't or don't. But to travel doesn't necessarily mean to go international. It means to go someplace you do not live. Yeah. So if you need to just, you know, drive over to Louisiana from here, that that can be an adventure.
• 3:04
  Би госide your boundaries.
• 3:05
  speaker-1 (46:51.958)
• 3:05
  And we do that. I mean, we do a lot of domestic travel because that's something that I haven't done as much of, sadly. Yeah. So there's so much to see in this country that I haven't seen. And so I carve out little trips, you know, some of them we can some maybe it's a short flight, but I said there's so much for us to see in this country. Yeah. Yeah. I have a a Tennessee trip in my head for maybe the fall.
• 3:06
  speaker-0 (47:21.294)
• 3:06
  It's so beautiful in the fall too. The a weird thing about me that except for people who are close to me may not know is that I had an interesting upbringing, which is its own episode. But because of that, I have lived in 25 states. Wow. I have been in almost every single one of the states. Not all, but almost all of the states and lived in 25. And the one thing that I can tell you, I always tell people is this is.
• 3:07
  is a marvelous country. It is an extraordinary nation with gr we're blessed with insane diversity. Go see it if you can. You will fall in love with it anew.
• 3:08
  speaker-1 (47:53.046)
• 3:08
  Absolutely.
• 3:09
  speaker-1 (48:03.954)
• 3:09
  yeah. I mean there's we have our own history and yeah. When my daughter moans that, you know, X, Y, or Z friend went to France or I said, Okay, guess what? We traveled all over New Mexico.
• 3:10
  speaker-0 (48:07.308)
• 3:10
  Yeah.
• 3:11
  speaker-0 (48:21.26)
• 3:11
  Yeah. I love that. Hey, New Mexico is so diverse and beautiful. There's just so much we I'm fully advocating for New Mexico at this point. But like there are just it's beautiful. It's crazy beautiful. I got engaged in Santa Fe, so I a huge, a huge right there on the plaza for those of you who know it. It's a good world, but maybe part of what's so important in what we're saying is push your boundaries, keep learning, keep seeking.
• 3:12
  speaker-1 (48:23.746)
• 3:12
  Ha ha ha
• 3:13
  speaker-0 (48:50.612)
• 3:13
  New adventures, that's part of what will make you fuller and you know, better aware of who you are and what you have to give, you know, and and have more opportunities to give. I don't know about you, but when I travel, I so often end up there, there's always a story about somebody we ran into and that we ended up getting to know and that we helped, or that they knew so and so, and then we connected that way and.
• 3:14
  There's just a lot to be gained from stepping outside your box.
• 3:15
  speaker-1 (49:22.078)
• 3:15
  I agree wholeheartedly. I was gonna say one thing for your listeners who s not necessarily them, but if their kid wanted to do a gap year. like I went with American Field Service and I know they offer financial aid, like they'll pay almost all of it. There's also the Rotary Club offers full ride if you a lot of people apparently don't know about it, but you can apply and they will pay for you to go.
• 3:16
  speaker-0 (49:47.405)
• 3:16
  Yeah.
• 3:17
  speaker-1 (49:51.374)
• 3:17
  to certain places like the So for your kids at least, like there are ways to get around not necessarily having the financial means. So
• 3:18
  speaker-0 (50:02.19)
• 3:18
  I love that. I love that. And you know, now that we have, you know, AI as an option, those of us who started an analog and now live in the digital world, a cool thing about AI is you can put it in there. My kids would like to travel. What are resources? What are options where they could reduce price or, you know, for free and connect me with those sources? So if anybody's listening to that and they feel so inspired.
• 3:19
  Galapagos, you chose because you knew it and it gave your character voice and and background and experiences. I love that. Where do you think, Miss Ryder Hart? you know what? Before I ask you this, I'm gonna say where do you want to write about next? But before I ask you that question, well, have you always been a writer or is is this book writing picked up in the last, I don't know, we're gonna say decade?
• 3:20
  speaker-1 (50:53.238)
• 3:20
  Last decade, yes, absolutely. So no, I I think I aspired to tell stories. I didn't necessarily know the medium. Start writing in earnest till I was almost forty. So I guess it's a little bit longer than ten years. But I started out just writing personal essays and started to get some traction. I did get several published and then I thought, okay, I'll try something else.
• 3:21
  I did try short stories. I've only managed to get one of those published. Those are far
• 3:22
  speaker-0 (51:24.239)
• 3:22
  Those are really hard. But that you try, girl.
• 3:23
  speaker-1 (51:28.032)
• 3:23
  points that the And I thought, well, it was I had a personal essay published in the modern love column in the New York Times. A hundred percent validation to think, okay, try to write something a little longer for him. And so I did write so Gap Year is my the third novel I've written, but first one I've published.
• 3:24
  speaker-0 (51:36.078)
• 3:24
  Mm-hmm. Yes, New York Times.
• 3:25
  speaker-0 (51:52.728)
• 3:25
  This is amazing. So, okay, there are women listening to this who maybe they have a book in them. Maybe they have a business they want to start. Maybe they have a volunteer. Maybe they want to build a garden. There are lots of things that people could want to do. Do you have any insight or tips or, you know, what would you share to somebody who's a little nervous about trying something that means something to them and risking?
• 3:26
  to move into that dream kind of part of themselves.
• 3:27
  speaker-1 (52:24.344)
• 3:27
  So I think that my insight is probably slightly morbid, but I'll tell you what motivated me.
• 3:28
  speaker-0 (52:32.136)
• 3:28
  I'm just your girl for that, go ahead.
• 3:29
  speaker-1 (52:34.926)
• 3:29
  I read the story, The Death of Ivan Illich, a long time ago, and it stuck with me, that end of his life, and he's got all this regret and can't die until he's able to sort of part with some of that and let people forgive him and forgive so
• 3:30
  It just stuck with me. So I like I said, I was approaching forty and I was terrified of anyone reading anything I'd written or judging what I'd written or rejecting me if they read it and thought, no, this isn't for me. But then I thought, one day I'm gonna be lying on my deathbed and I'm gonna have all sorts of regret because I just didn't try, regardless of all of the
• 3:31
  possible negative things that can go hand in hand with it. There's been so much positive on the other hand. And so I think that's it is that if you are sitting there on a dream and thinking, no, I can't do this, or there's all these just imagine how you'll feel if you actually do get to that last gasp of air and think, I should have done that. That's gotta
• 3:32
  speaker-0 (53:45.207)
• 3:32
  It's a son of a gun, yeah.
• 3:33
  speaker-1 (53:47.896)
• 3:33
  So do it. That's why Nike came up with that slogan, you know, just do it. There's nothing that you have to lose. Absolutely nothing. no.
• 3:34
  speaker-0 (53:57.25)
• 3:34
  No, 'cause if you didn't do it you wouldn't have anything anyway. So loot, yeah.
• 3:35
  speaker-1 (54:01.912)
• 3:35
  That's the way I looked at it. And there has been, you know, rejection. There's been a boatload of rejection. But there's also been I'm getting those yeses and and I have, you know, I think slowly certifying my readership and people who come to me and say, I loved this and I related to this and you know, I think I'm gonna go to Ecuador now. And that's just the best feeling.
• 3:36
  speaker-0 (54:10.786)
• 3:36
  Continue now.
• 3:37
  speaker-0 (54:29.282)
• 3:37
  Yeah, it's so gratifying. I love this because you are talking to certified Death Doula who the reason I started this podcast, a midlife pivot, I might add, because I was not a podcaster prior to age sixty. But the reason why I started this podcast is because memento mori, the Latin phrase that means remember you die or remember you are mortal. And the concept behind it is that because we are mortal now.
• 3:38
  We make choices to live so that when we die, we don't have regrets, which is everything you just said. I so beautifully. So beautifully. all right. So you've already written two other books, which may or may not be published. It matters not. Your next book, what will you write about or where will you go, Lindsay Goldstein?
• 3:39
  speaker-1 (55:21.134)
• 3:39
  So I actually am finishing another book that is actually so the second book that I wrote, I don't think I executed it well and I just the concept and then threw it away, the whole manuscript started on page one and then I had came up with the first draft. I'd sent that off to an editor and she sent me back eleven pages of notes. I
• 3:40
  Kind of page one again. And then I sent it to two beta readers. And I took the inf basically the the feedback they gave me that was similar. And I did another page one rewrite. So I'm sitting on that rewrite. I have it off to another beta reader. I used to have an agent. We parted way. So I'd like to query agents again. So I am I just finished a query letter. I just started a synopsis today.
• 3:41
  speaker-0 (56:12.845)
• 3:41
  Yeah.
• 3:42
  speaker-1 (56:19.142)
• 3:42
  And while I'm waiting for feedback again on that manuscript. So it actually here, although some of it does take place in Italy.
• 3:43
  speaker-0 (56:28.782)
• 3:43
  that is so wonderful. I just first of all, think something you should know is that I'm so enjoyed talking with you and getting to hear your insights and your wisdom. And girl, I'm rooting for you. I'm rooting for this first book to do well, but I'm rooting for the second book already. Cause I am so grateful that there are women like you that are taking a chance to.
• 3:44
  Push their talents and their gifts and to speak, you know, and to tell the stories that touch and move and inspire us at this age or at any age, right? But I mean, that's just amazing. I am rooting for you, Lindsay Goldstein. Go, girl. Remember her name, you guys, because and and get the book. Is the book available on
• 3:45
  speaker-1 (57:17.834)
• 3:45
  Anywhere. Farms and Noble or you can walk into any bookstore and they can order it for you if they don't carry it. So anywhere that sells books you can buy.
• 3:46
  speaker-0 (57:29.838)
• 3:46
  I love it. And if they want to find you, they to
• 3:47
  speaker-1 (57:34.378)
• 3:47
  If you want to find me on social media, it's at Goldstein Lindsay on both Instagram and threads are what I use the most. I have a website, Lindsay Goldsteinauthor.com Substack that I've been really bad at writing a newsletter that I will get on it. Lindsay Goldstein.substack dot com.
• 3:48
  speaker-0 (57:56.13)
• 3:48
  Very nice. And I will put those links in the show notes. So please look there also if you would like to get a hold of Lindsay. I highly encourage her book. I think it's a wonderful story. And I think we need to send a message to publishers that we are an audience that they should realize is hungry for stories because we love them. And speaking of which, a thought here, and I'll throw this out as we get ready to close, but you know something.
• 3:49
  You have a story in you about a mom and a daughter that take a trip and what they learn.
• 3:50
  speaker-1 (58:32.706)
• 3:50
  Yeah, that is true. I actually wrote an essay about it that you can Google. I think it's called I Went All the Way to East Africa to learn about I can't remember the full title, but it I wrote about my mom and I were very lucky to see several times the wildebeest crossing. Yes. There was one, I mean, I'll make myself cry thinking about it, but
• 3:51
  I mean, it happened multiple times, but there was just this one moment in particular I remembered where a mother, Wildebeast, had made it to the other side and her baby didn't cross because of the reason and was making this horrific sound of just distress. And I remember asking because we were just with one man from Tanzania and what is going on? And he said, you know, and the mother kept
• 3:52
  turning back and looking like she didn't know if she had to go with the herd or say and I was just sobbing. But it made me write an essay about my relationship with my mother and how it all, you know, reprocessed on this trip with her. And and then it also made me reflect on my role as a mother. So so I did write an essay, but you're right, I could write a whole story about it. Yeah.
• 3:53
  speaker-0 (59:51.374)
• 3:53
  I'll just hand that to you. recently also got to go to Tanzania and see one of those crossings and I gosh, that's tough because those waters have crocodile and hippos, which are horribly mean animals.
• 3:54
  speaker-1 (01:00:04.544)
• 3:54
  And so much anxiety in general. I loved every minute, but I also I
• 3:55
  speaker-0 (01:00:10.036)
• 3:55
  That part that part's just hard. I still have nightmares about the hippos and the crocs in the water because they're just downstream on purpose. yeah. Of where the welder beasts are crossing, 'cause that's this is nature, right? But still
• 3:56
  speaker-1 (01:00:24.391)
• 3:56
  everyone has to eat. Everyone has to eat.
• 3:57
  speaker-0 (01:00:27.424)
• 3:57
  They do. Yeah, na Africa, you know, I'm sure there are other natural environments that really knock the point home, but I'm telling you, nothing for me, nothing like Africa to really remind you that Wild Kingdom wasn't hidden. Yeah. It is. You know, and and the laws are a little bit different. And I just like my heart broke with you when you when you said the baby went in, because I saw wildebees have very skinny legs for such bovine tops.
• 3:58
  speaker-1 (01:00:55.582)
• 3:58
  Yeah.
• 3:59
  speaker-0 (01:00:55.596)
• 3:59
  Yeah. And when they cross on those rocks and they slip, it just
• 4:00
  speaker-1 (01:00:59.699)
• 4:00
  yeah, no. It all it was the most angst ridden I think I've ever been. But yeah.
• 4:01
  speaker-0 (01:01:07.97)
• 4:01
  Yeah. But you know something, if that gives you if that takes you to a a larger story, maybe that's a certain redemption of of the experience, yes.
• 4:02
  speaker-1 (01:01:17.516)
• 4:02
  Yeah, there's still that relatability, even though we're a different species.
• 4:03
  speaker-0 (01:01:22.186)
• 4:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. And I love that if it inspired you. I think that's crazy beautiful. Well, I am super excited to for your book and want to encourage book clubs, anyone listening here, great book. A lot to talk about, you can tell from this conversation. But thank you so much for joining us today, Lindsay.
• 4:04
  speaker-1 (01:01:41.39)
• 4:04
  Thank you so much. And the other thing I will add, if there are any book clubs that read it and want me to show up on Zoom or something, I'm always going to be a guest. I've done it a few times.
• 4:05
  speaker-0 (01:01:51.406)
• 4:05
  Fabulous. I actually will personally recommend you to some people just to see if we can get something to pop there. I love that. I love that.
• 4:06
  speaker-1 (01:01:58.562)
• 4:06
  So send me a message and I will make it work.
• 4:07
  speaker-0 (01:02:01.877)
• 4:07
  Okay. We love that.
• 4:08
  speaker-1 (01:02:03.544)
• 4:08
  Thank you.
• 4:09
  speaker-0 (01:02:07.574)
• 4:09
  I'm so grateful you listened to this episode. I hope it was a real value to you. If there's a sister in your life who needs this message, please share it. Just like women have done to lift each other up over the centuries and across cultures. Women lifting each other is so important. It's why I do this work. And to avoid FOMO and keep up leveling your own life, make sure you don't miss the next episode.
• 4:10
  You may be losing hormones, but your life has given you powerful perspective. And I believe you have something to give that no one else does, that the world needs. So remember, I'm rooting for you. Let's go.