40 Is the New Cryptkeeper

According to the internet, anyway. Let’s set the record straight.

Lately, Hallmark has surprised me—in a good way.

They’ve released a few movies that dare (gasp) to feature midlife women as the leads. Women with laugh lines. Women who’ve lived actual lives. Women who are looking for love, purpose, or at least a solid travel itinerary.

I was all in… until I made the mistake of reading the reviews.

And guess what? A chunk of these critiques came from men.

Shocker.

I know.

Apparently, the idea of women in their 40s and 50s falling in love, traveling, or (heaven forbid) having agency is just too much for some people to process.

One reviewer called the characters “sad” for gallivanting around the globe like they weren’t chained to their local grocery store.

Another said midlife women looking for love was “ridiculous.” And of course—because it’s the internet—someone had to comment on how the actresses looked.

Lines. Wrinkles. Actual signs of living.

The horror.

And I’m well aware that Hallmark has a not-so-charming history of aging out actresses, and they've rightfully landed in hot water more than once over their ageism problem.

But let me break it to you gently: women don’t hit 40 and turn into the cryptkeeper. We don’t retire to a mossy cave with our knitting needles and fade into irrelevance.

We thrive. We switch careers, we fall in love (again or for the first time), we dye our hair blue, move to Portugal, and start businesses.

We write books and hike volcanoes, and, yes, sometimes, we even do cartwheels just to prove we still can. (I didn’t even break my wrist)

I'm 45.

Married to the love of my life, yes, but I still travel, I still dream, and I refuse to shrivel up in a beige cardigan of invisibility just because society is uncomfortable with women aging in public.

And just for the record, I feel more confident in this body now, neuropathy, health quirks, and all, than I did in my 20s.

I know who I am. And I sure as hell don’t need permission to be visible.

That’s why I’m writing a book about a midlife woman. Because people don’t see enough of us. And when we are portrayed, it’s often through a warped lens that assumes our best days are behind us unless we’re cast as someone’s mom or plot-convenient cautionary tale.

Listen, if a man in his 50s buys a Porsche, takes up salsa dancing, and starts a new business in Australia, he’s just having a midlife renaissance.

But a woman in her 40s? She’s told to sit down, lower her voice, and invest in anti-aging serum. Heaven forbid we be seen, heard, or—God help us—desired.

So yeah, I’m applauding Hallmark for giving us stories that reflect women like me. Are the storylines sometimes silly or over-the-top?

Absolutely.

But that’s not my issue.

My issue is with the people pretending it’s unrealistic for midlife women to seek joy.

Love. Transformation. It’s not just realistic—it’s relatable.

I know women in their 40s and 50s who’ve fallen in love again after crawling out of the wreckage of a brutal divorce. Women who walked away from careers they gave three decades to and hopped a flight to Spain to finally write that novel that had been living in their bones. Women who didn’t just rediscover themselves—they claimed themselves and found a voice they were no longer afraid to use.

The notion that these women don’t exist? That’s the ridiculous thing.

I know them.

I’ve watched them rebuild, reinvent, and rise. They’re not fictional fantasies—they’re living, breathing proof that midlife isn’t a slow fade into irrelevance.

It’s a damn rebirth.

And here’s the kicker, I’m one of them. The first half of my 40s? It’s been a storm of grief, trauma, silence, and unraveling. I lost my voice. I lost pieces of myself I wasn’t sure I’d ever get back. But I clawed my way through the crap—bloody, bruised, but not broken. And now I feel something I hadn’t felt in years: strength.

Freedom.

A sense of becoming, not despite the chaos but because of it.

My hair’s got glitter strands now—some call it gray, I call it sparkle. I’ve got laugh lines etched under my eyes, hips that widened like a well-loved path, stretch marks, cellulite, and a bladder that betrays me every time I sneeze or laugh too hard. But you know what, I love every single one of those so-called age things.

They’re not flaws.

They’re proof I’ve lived, laughed, survived, and stretched—sometimes literally.

---

While Logan was at the barber last week, I was hanging out in the hallway of the salon building—the kind where everyone has their own little studio. You can’t help but overhear conversations.

One salon had a woman in full disbelief over her 16-year-old wanting to buy anti-aging cream. The mom shut that down fast: “Um, no. That’s not happening.”

The other woman chimed in, equally flabbergasted. “Just because some TikTok influencer tells you to slather on retinol at 16 doesn’t mean you should. They’re trying to sell you something so they make money.”

Amen!

When I was 16, my “skincare routine” was more of a skincare shrug. If I remembered to wash my face, it was a good day. My biggest concern was zits, not wrinkles, and Oxy pads were the miracle cure. I didn't know what collagen was, much less how to “boost” it.

What happened to letting teenagers be teenagers instead of turning them into anxious beauty consumers before they’ve even finished puberty?

---

Even with health malarkey and my occasional body betrayal, I am still showing up.

Still living.

Still worthy of love, laughter, and my damn storyline.

So here’s to the authors, filmmakers, and creators putting midlife women front and center.

And here’s to me—45, sassy, still doing cartwheels, and fired up to finish this manuscript.

Because midlife isn’t the end.

It’s just a different kind of beginning.

And this time, I'm writing the script.