I Went Quiet Here. This Is Where I Went.
And why I’m inviting you to come with me.
A few years ago, I wrote about love here.
About whether to go back to an ex. About the harsh truth that love isn’t what we’ve been told. About divorce, and how nobody warns you it’s a trauma, not just a legal event.
Many of you read those pieces. Some of you wrote to me. Then I went quiet.
Here’s what I was doing.
I sat across from women who looked like they had it all together: executives, founders, the ones everyone else leaned on. Behind closed doors, they were telling me the same story in different words:
I did everything right, and I’m exhausted.
They’d followed the script. Be strong. Be excellent. Hold it all together. Love the way you were taught to love. And somewhere around midlife, the script stopped working. In their marriages. At work. In their own bodies.
I know that story because it’s mine too.
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For more than 25 years, I’ve studied and coached high-achieving women as an organizational psychologist, nurse, and executive coach. I’ve researched what happens to women of color in institutions that were never built for us. I’ve studied what perimenopause does to women at the height of their leadership. And I’ve lived through the kind of heartbreak I used to write about here.
What I’ve learned is that the problem was never us. It was the script.
So I started LoveWrite, a newsletter about rewriting the scripts we were handed about love, work, and midlife, so we can stop surviving on strength alone and actually flourish.
Every Wednesday, you’ll get an honest essay on one of three things:
- Love Script: love and relationships, including the one with yourself
- Off Script: work, identity, and the cost of carrying everything
- Act Two: our bodies, perimenopause, and reinvention
If you’ve ever read something I wrote here and felt seen, this is where that conversation continues.
Subscribe to LoveWrite:
I’d love to have you there.
Venessa M. Perry, PhD, MPH, is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and executive coach: Rewriting the scripts on love, work, and midlife so that high-achieving women can flourish.
