The Midlife Edit

Who have you become to keep a relationship working—and how much of her is actually you?

This week, I’m joined by author, relationship coach, and Love By Design podcast host Joan Nwosu for a conversation about the invisible scripts we carry into love.

Joan shares what eight engagements and a divorce taught her about choosing partners, trying to earn love, and saying yes to someone else while saying no to herself. I share some of my own history of being the fixer, plus what changed when I met my husband at 37.

We also talk about the Relationship Ghostwriter and how beliefs from childhood, religion, and culture can shape what we accept in our relationships.

In this episode:
• Recognizing when you’re changing yourself to keep the peace
• Falling for someone’s potential instead of seeing who they are today
• Joan’s distinction between chemistry, compatibility, and conscious alignment
• Dating intentionally in midlife and asking better questions
• What social media leaves out of seemingly perfect relationships
• Making room for change within an existing marriage
• Joan’s use of Human Design in her forthcoming book, The New Love Languages

And yes, we discuss my results from Joan’s relationship assessment—including the zero in self-alignment that gave me plenty to think about.

Whether you’re dating again or happily married and still learning about yourself, there’s a question here worth asking: Can I be myself in this relationship?

Connect with Joan:
Website: https://joannwosu.com/
Book, resources, and podcast: https://newlovelanguages.com/

Connect with The Midlife Edit:
https://themidlifeeditco.com/
Instagram: @thejenweinstein
YouTube: @themidlifeeditco

If you recognize yourself in this conversation, share it with a friend you can talk honestly with.

Salt-N-Pepa told us to talk about sex in the '90s, and somehow we're still embarrassed to bring it up at the doctor's office. So today we're talking about it.

My guest is Lana Kerr, founder of CO2Lift® and author of the new book HERgevity™: The Missing Science of Female Longevity: Skin, Sex & Strength. We recorded on the day her book came out, and the conversation got personal fast.

Lana shares the surprisingly candid marriage advice her mother gave her, the changes in her 40s that showed her how much she'd never been taught, and why she believes intimacy has been left out of the longevity conversation. I open up about my own experience after a partial hysterectomy at 37. We talk about the culture ghostwriter, the messages about what women should want, tolerate and say out loud, and why we should be able to talk about our bodies the way we'd talk about an elbow.

Heads up: we get into orgasms, so this one might not be for the car ride with the kids.

In this episode:

00:00 Intro

01:14 Welcome, Lana, on her book's launch day

02:01 From accounting and weight-loss centers to women's wellness

03:48 Her mother's marriage advice and the "game of tennis"

05:15 The changes in her 40s that started this work

07:43 Hold the Pen, the culture ghostwriter, and being "the friend" who brings it up

12:54 How to tell real help from a cheesy ad

21:29 Why intimacy still matters as we get older

27:06 Hysterectomy, lube vs. tissue health, and thinking about prevention earlier

32:21 The butterfly stage of life, and women in their 80s having the best sex of their lives

35:27 Talking about it like you'd talk about your elbow

40:08 Interview your doctor before you ask about sex

46:26 Inside HERgevity™

51:54 The HERgevity™ Orgasm Guide: relaxation, feeding desire, finding your voice

56:50 Turn off Netflix and connect instead

58:40 Did a ghostwriter shape Lana's career? (And why Gone with the Wind)

1:01:22 Lana's go-to playlist

1:04:00 Closing thoughts

Connect with Lana

HERgevity™ (book): Get Your Copy Now

Website: https://lanakerr.com/

Instagram: @thelanakerr

Connect with Jen

Instagram: @thejenweinstein

Website: https://www.themidlifeeditco.com

If you have a friend you could have this conversation with, send her this episode. And if you have a friend you can't have this conversation with, send it to her too.

Disclosure: Lana Kerr is the founder and CEO of LUMISQUE Inc., maker of CO2Lift®, and the author of the books discussed. This was an unpaid guest interview. This episode is for general information and isn't medical advice. Talk with a qualified clinician about your own health.

Until next week, let's make it a damn good chapter.

What happens when a comedian can’t make her own mother laugh?

When Dani Klein Modisett’s mother became withdrawn while living with Alzheimer’s, Dani hired another comedian to connect with her. Watching them laugh together became the beginning of Laughter On Call—and a business Dani started at 54.

In this episode, Dani joins me to talk about finding moments of joy when life is painful, showing up for someone when you don’t know what to say, and letting go of the pressure to make every moment perfect.

We also get into her years in comedy, the challenges of using humor as a woman in leadership, and how she handles the self-doubt that comes with putting her work into the world. Her advice about coming back to what you want to create is something I needed to hear.

If you’re caring for someone you love or wondering what your own next chapter could look like, there’s a lot here for you.

In this conversation:
• How Dani went from performing and teaching comedy to founding Laughter On Call
• Her mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis and the unexpected connection that sparked a business
• Making room for laughter during illness and grief
• Letting go of the moment before so you can be present
• Simple ways to show up when you feel awkward or unsure
• Using humor to connect without undermining yourself
• Starting a business at 54 and creating despite criticism

Connect with Dani:
Laughter On Call: https://www.laughteroncall.com
Website: https://www.kleincomedy.com
Email: [email protected]

Watch her TEDx talk, “What My Mother’s Alzheimer’s Taught Me About Laughter”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8JW8lP_T9k

Dani’s books:
Take My Spouse, Please
Afterbirth: Stories You Won’t Read in a Parenting Magazine

Her current confidence-boosting song:
“It’s My Turn” by Diana Ross

If this conversation brought someone to mind, send it her way. Follow The Midlife Edit for more conversations about who we are and what we want next.

Have you ever been excited about an idea, only to talk yourself out of it before you even started? You’re not creative enough. You’re too old. What if somebody thinks it’s stupid?

Yeah. We get into all of that.

Writer and creativity teacher Allegra Huston joins me to talk about finding your own voice after years of living with other people’s expectations. Growing up in the well-known Huston family, Allegra often found that people’s assumptions about her life had very little to do with her actual experience. She shares how she began figuring out where she belonged and what mattered to her.

From there, we talk about the creativity so many of us learned to dismiss, the pressure to make everything productive, and why writing something just because it feels good can be reason enough.

I also bring Allegra a question I’ve wrestled with myself: Is telling my own story selfish? What if somebody gets upset? Her response is one I needed to hear.

If you’ve been following the conversations about ghostwriters and holding the pen, this episode gives us somewhere to begin. You don’t have to call yourself a writer. You don’t even have to know what you want to say yet.

In this conversation:

• Recognizing the difference between your own story and other people’s version of it.
• Why “I’m not creative” can become a rule we never question.
• Writing without needing to publish, monetize, or justify it.
• What Allegra means by imaginative intelligence and “write what you don’t know.”
• The fear of being judged when you tell the truth about your life.
• How pursuing your own interests can influence your children.
• Finding community where you can try something without having to be good at it first.

Try the exercise Allegra shares

Think of a memory that matters to you. Start with the words “I don’t remember” and write for ten minutes. See what comes up without deciding in advance where it needs to go.

About Allegra Huston

Allegra Huston is a writer, editor, and creativity teacher, as well as the co-founder of Imaginative Storm. Through its workshops, retreats, courses, and weekly Saturday Writing Circle, she helps people move past their inner critics, reconnect with their imaginations, and discover their own voices.

Connect with Allegra and explore her work

• Imaginative Storm
• Saturday Writing Circle
• Imaginative Storm on Instagram
• Allegra Huston on Instagram
• Imaginative Storm on YouTube
• Allegra’s TEDx talk: Imaginative Intelligence—Your Creativity, Your Insight, Your Self
• Allegra’s website
• Books and writing resources, including Write What You Don’t Know and 50 Imaginative Storm Writing Prompts
• Imaginative Storm on Substack

Stay connected with The Midlife Edit

Visit themidlifeeditco.com for more episodes and to join the newsletter.

If this conversation made you think of a woman who keeps talking herself out of something she wants to try, send it to her.

Jackie Popovec used to sneak her own songs into sets without announcing them. If someone asked afterward what that song was, she’d tell them it was hers.

For someone so comfortable onstage, sharing her own writing felt surprisingly vulnerable. That’s where we go in this conversation.

The lead singer and songwriter of The Vindys joins me to talk about how her songs come together, the personal story behind Trap Door, and getting emotional when fans already know the words to a new release. We also talk about letting a song mean something different to each person who hears it.

And yes, we get into singing “We Belong” alongside Pat Benatar—and trying very hard to remember the lyrics.

Jackie shares her love of small venues and local music, why independent radio matters to the band, and an emerging artist she wants us listening to: Brady Lawrence. She talks about seeing Brady perform in Akron and wanting to help support her as a young singer and songwriter.

We also discuss Jackie’s connection to Women Who Rock and why women’s health research matters to both of us.

SEE THE VINDYS AT WOMEN WHO ROCK

The Women Who Rock Benefit Concert is October 17, 2026, at Stage AE in Pittsburgh, featuring Taylor Dayne, The Vindys, and more. The event benefits women’s health research at Magee-Womens Research Institute. I’ll be there!

Concert details and tickets

CONNECT WITH THE VINDYS

Official website
Listen to Trap Door
Upcoming shows
Shop band merch
All music and social links—including Spotify, Apple Music, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

WOMEN WHO ROCK

Learn more about Women Who Rock

THE MIDLIFE EDIT

Visit The Midlife Edit

Loved this conversation? Send it to the friend who’s always introducing you to your next favorite band.

What if the point of midlife isn't to “find yourself” again?

Because honestly, which version are we even looking for?

After The Ghostwriters and The Blank Page, I've been thinking a lot about what happens when you finally get the pen back. And my first instinct was exactly what you'd expect from me: figure out the plan. What's next? What am I becoming? What am I supposed to write on this blank page?

And then I realized... I'm doing it again.

I'm putting pressure on myself to become some new, improved, “best version” of me when maybe I don't need to know who she is yet.

There are versions of me I haven't met yet. There is music I don't know I'm going to love. People I haven't met. Places I haven't been. Things I'll try and probably suck at. Things I'll change my mind about. And hopefully, there is a 50-year-old Jen who looks back at some of the shit I worry about now and wonders why I cared so much.

I don't want to go backward and find myself.

And I don't need the next version of me to be better.

I want her to be more mine.

In this episode, we're talking about the weird in-between of midlife, why questioning what you want isn't a crisis, and what happens when you stop trying to have the next version of yourself completely figured out.

Maybe we're not lost.

Maybe we're just between versions.

And maybe the question isn't Who am I?

Maybe it's Who haven't I met yet?

For five episodes, we named the ghostwriters: the family, the culture, the relationship, the caregiver, and the job.

But what happens when they finally put down the pen?

Taking it back is supposed to feel like freedom. Sometimes it does. Other times, it feels like standing in front of a blank page with absolutely no idea what to write.

In this episode, Jen explores the uncomfortable space between “That’s not who I am anymore” and “I don’t know who I am yet.” She talks about the roles that gave us belonging, approval, safety, purpose, and proof that we mattered—and why letting go of those roles can feel like freedom and grief at the same time.

Jen also gets honest about her own relationship with work, usefulness, praise, caregiving, and performance. If you’ve spent years becoming fluent in what everyone else wants from you, it makes sense that your own voice may sound quiet at first.

This episode isn’t about creating a perfect reinvention plan. It’s about beginning with one honest sentence, following the fragments that make you feel alive, and learning to recognize your own handwriting again.

In this episode:

• Why taking back the pen can feel more frightening than freeing
• The five ghostwriters who help shape our identities
• What our old roles gave us—and why they can be difficult to release
• The difference between being caring and disappearing into what everyone else needs
• Why gratitude and longing can exist in the same life
• How reinvention can become another performance
• Why you don’t need to know the entire next chapter
• How to begin listening for your own voice again
• What The Midlife Edit has taught Jen about feeling most like herself
• Why the page may be blank, but you are not

Questions to sit with:

• If no one needed anything from you for one day, where would your mind go?
• If you couldn’t introduce yourself through your relationships, caregiving roles, or job, what would you want someone to know about you?
• Which parts of your current life feel chosen by you—and which feel inherited?
• What is one thing you want that you’ve been trying to justify instead of simply admitting?
• If you didn’t have to write the whole next chapter today, what is one honest sentence you could put on the page?

You are not starting from nothing. You are starting from everything you have lived, learned, survived, lost, built, and become.

The page is blank, but you are not.

Pick up the pen.

What happens when what you do becomes who you are?

In the final installment of The Ghostwriters series, Jen takes on one of the sneakiest ghostwriters of all: the job. The career, role, title—or simply the thing you do every day—that slowly becomes tangled up with your identity, your worth, and your sense of being needed.

Fresh off a bucket-list trip to The Gorge, Jen asks a question that sounds simple but gets uncomfortable fast: What do you actually want?

This episode digs into the Good Girl at Work, the Ladder, the Golden Handcuffs, and the Competence Trap—the scripts that keep us climbing, achieving, proving, and moving the goalpost even when we're no longer sure we want what's waiting at the top.

Jen also gets personal about her own relationship with work, achievement, praise, and the realization that being really fucking good at something doesn't mean you owe it the rest of your life.

Because there's a difference between achievement and alignment.

And you don't have to hate an old chapter to turn the page.

In this episode:

• Why being needed at work can become addictive
• The difference between achievement and alignment
• How the “good girl at work” script keeps us overfunctioning
• Why success can still leave you wondering, “Now what?”
• The trap of being really good at something you've outgrown
• Why reinvention doesn't require blowing up your entire life
• How to separate what you do from who you are
• The question to ask when you're finally ready to pick your pen back up

Plus, Jen closes out The Ghostwriters and looks ahead to what's next: The Blank Page—because figuring out what you don't want is only half the edit. What happens when you finally have the pen back…and have no fucking idea what you want to write next?

There's a version of you that only exists in the two seconds before anyone else in the house needs something — before the day remembers you're in it and hands you the list. In Episode 4 of Ghostwriters, Jen goes after a ghostwriter that doesn't sneak in at all. This one gets invited. This one gets thanked. It shows up wearing a name tag that says Mom, or Stepmom, or Daughter, or Sister, or "the strong one" — and it writes some of the most exhausting chapters of a woman's life while everybody, including her, calls it love.

Jen names four scripts — the Good Mother Script, the Stepmother Script, the Sandwich Generation Script, and the Built-In Caregiver Script — and then goes deeply personal about living inside two of them at once as a mother to her 21-year-old son and a stepmother to her husband's four kids. She shares a raw, real moment from the actual week of recording: being left off her stepkids' school emergency contact and pickup list on purpose, in the middle of a high-conflict co-parenting dynamic on her husband's side. She also speaks to the sandwich-generation and built-in-caregiver scripts from the outside, having supported her mother and mother-in-law through surgeries and hard stretches without currently living inside that role herself.

The episode closes with this week's tool: the oxygen-mask question — if you stripped away everything you do for other people this week, is there anything left on the page that's just yours?

Links Mentioned

• The Edit Room
• The Backstage Pass newsletter
• Episode 81 — Ghostwriters, Episode 1: The Family
• Episode 82 — Ghostwriters, Episode 2: The Culture
• Episode 83 — Ghostwriters, Episode 3: The Relationship

Subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and join The Edit Room to tell Jen which script — or scripts — you're living inside right now, and one thing that's still just yours, even if it's small.

There's a version of every relationship where two people pick up the same pen and write a better story together than either one could have written alone. But sometimes the pen changes hands — quietly, one dropped opinion at a time — until "we" stops meaning two people writing together and starts meaning one person's handwriting with the other person's name signed underneath it. In Episode 3 of Ghostwriters, Jen goes after the ghostwriter that doesn't sneak in through a magazine or a childhood role. This one shows up disguised as love: The Relationship.

Jen names five scripts that quietly take the pen out of a woman's hands inside a partnership — the Compromise Script, the Logistics Script, the Peacekeeper Script, the "Whose Plan Is The Plan" Script, and the Invisible Load Script — and then gets unflinchingly personal about the one she lived herself for twenty years: dating potential instead of people, disappearing into a Miami Hurricanes starter jacket for a boy whose name she barely remembers, and staying in a situationship with a man in his late 30s or 40s who still lived with his mother, wouldn't claim her as his girlfriend, and withheld intimacy if she didn't go to the gym. She talks about turning 37, meeting her husband, and the realization that undid her while writing this episode — she didn't have to change a single thing about herself to be loved well.

The episode closes with this week's tool: the difference between a real compromise and erasure wearing a compromise's clothes, and a pointed new question for anyone who recognizes the pattern — are you editing him into someone better, or editing yourself into someone smaller?

• The Edit Room
• The Backstage Pass newsletter
• Episode 1: Ghostwriters, Episode 1: The Family
• Episode 2: Ghostwriters, Episode 2: The Culture
• Episode 75: Hold the Pen

Subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share this episode with the woman in your life who needs to hear it. Join The Edit Room to tell Jen which script is running in your relationship right now — or, if the pen genuinely gets shared in your partnership, tell her that too.