The New Beginning

I didn’t sleep well last night. Not even close.

I can’t decide if it’s menopause slowly creeping through the cracks of my body like an uninvited ghost, or if it was the accidental two-hour “nap” I took on the couch at 7:30 p.m. Can something even qualify as a nap once the sun is gone and your bra is already off for the night? At that point, I think it’s just emotional surrender.

I woke up disoriented, tangled in a blanket that smelled faintly like lavender detergent and exhaustion. The house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the occasional creak that old homes make when everyone inside them is carrying too much. I tossed and turned for hours afterward, flipping my pillow over to the cool side like it held answers. It didn’t.

There’s an anxiousness living inside me lately. Not loud enough to scream, but persistent enough to hum beneath everything I do. It sits in my chest like a tiny engine that never shuts off. I tried to pinpoint the root of it sometime around 2:14 a.m., staring at the ceiling fan spinning lazy circles above me.

And I think I found it.

I want to be loved.

Not the safe love. Not the guaranteed love. I already have that. My girls love me with their sticky hugs and eye rolls and random “Mom, look at this” interruptions. My friends love me in voice notes and cocktails and late-night pep talks. But there’s still this ache for romantic love. Male love. The kind that reaches for you in the middle of the night just to make sure you’re still there.

Why?

Why do I crave the one thing that has consistently disappointed me?

I wish I could say that sentence came from bitterness or sarcasm, but it doesn’t. It’s not pessimism speaking dramatically into a microphone. It’s simply evidence. Historical fact. A long trail of beautiful beginnings followed by confusion, disappointment, betrayal, or loneliness sitting beside someone who promised they’d never make me feel alone.

I probably shouldn’t have reread the old texts from my ex this morning. That was emotional self-harm disguised as curiosity.

I sat at my desk with coffee going cold beside me while scrolling through old messages from the time we broke up. The tears came suddenly, embarrassingly, dripping right onto my keyboard. Not because I missed him. Absolutely not. That man sent me approximately five unsolicited dick pics a day like he was running a one-man marketing campaign nobody subscribed to. And honestly? There was nothing award-winning happening there. No offense to him, but if confidence could enlarge anatomy, he would’ve been unstoppable.

No, I wasn’t crying because I wanted him back.

I was crying because I remembered how desperately I wanted to matter to someone who never truly saw me.

That realization hits differently at 47.

Still, somewhere underneath the sadness, something else is waking up in me.

Dreams.

Real ones.

For the first time in a while, I can actually see a future unfolding in front of me that has nothing to do with whether a man chooses me. I started thinking seriously about social media today — expanding it, sharpening it, turning it into something bigger. Country clubs. Lifestyle content. Networking. Luxury spaces with polished women hiding messy stories behind perfect tennis skirts and Cartier bracelets. I can see the entire vision so clearly it almost scares me.

And the craziest part?

I think I could actually do it.

I called a couple of my TV friends today and they were immediately on board to help. That kind of support feels intoxicating when you’ve spent years doubting your own magic. For a few moments, I could feel momentum building inside me like a storm gathering strength.

Then, right on cue, self-doubt slithered in.

It always does.

I don’t know why my brain still attaches my worth — and somehow even my success — to men. It’s like there’s this outdated software running quietly in the background telling me none of my accomplishments fully count unless I have someone standing beside me saying, “That’s my woman.”

How do you rewrite relationship expectations at 47 years old?

How do you untangle decades of conditioning that taught you being chosen was the ultimate prize?

Because the truth is, I don’t actually need anyone to take care of me anymore.

That’s the ironic part.

I know how to make money now. Real money. I understand my strengths and weaknesses in a way younger me never did. I know how to prospect. I know how to sell. I know how to walk into a room and connect with people. I’ve developed a work ethic carved from survival and reinvention and necessity. Professionally, I am stepping into one of the most powerful versions of myself I’ve ever met.

There is so much left for me to do.

So many rooms I haven’t walked into yet.

So many ideas still waiting for me.

So why do I still feel like a failure because I don’t have the love of a man?

And if I’m being even more honest… even when I do have it, it rarely makes me feel better for long.

Most of the time, it slowly dismantles me.

It softens my light.

It quiets my song.

It makes me shrink in tiny invisible ways until one day I wake up and realize I abandoned myself trying to keep someone else comfortable.

And yet… all I want is to be seen.

God, I hate even writing that.

It sounds so needy. So embarrassingly human. If I could flip a switch and remove that longing from myself, I probably would. I would trade it in for detachment and emotional unavailability and whatever mysterious disease allows people to “play it cool.”

But here we are.

Still trying to train my brain to become a heartless cougar.

Although, to be fair, the only thing I’ve truly mastered so far is dating younger men.

And honestly?

Best decision I’ve ever made.

More on that later.