If you had told me ten years ago that midlife would feel like this, I would have laughed, filled my glass from the Bota Box, and kept moving like I always have. I was too busy raising kids, running businesses, hosting events, building communities, and generally doing the most to ever imagine a season where the ground beneath me would shift so hard that I would have to rebuild my sense of self from scratch.

But here I am. A Xennial woman planted squarely between generations, between identities, between chapters, between who I have been and who I am becoming. A woman who grew up rewinding cassette tapes with a pencil and is now screen mirroring slide decks with one hand while googling perimenopause symptoms with the other. A woman who can both run a company and cry in the Target parking lot. A woman who carries grief and hope in the same purse.

Grief, Unraveling, and Telling the Truth

This season of my life has been a surprise. Some of it has been beautiful. Some of it has knocked me flat. Recently losing my mom changed me in ways I am still learning how to name. Grief has stripped away the parts of me that were performing and left only what felt true. It made everything louder and softer at the same time. Louder in the sense that I could suddenly hear the parts of my life that were not working. Softer in the way I lost my appetite for pretending.

Creating as a Form of Survival

Inside all of that unraveling, something unexpected happened. I started creating again. Not from pressure. Not from the need to produce or prove anything. I created because it felt like oxygen. Because writing felt like a soft blanket I kept reaching for. Because building new things is the language my nervous system speaks.

And that is how Xennial Girl was born. Not as another project, although let’s be honest, it is a project. Not as another business, although it might become one. It started because I needed a place to land and tell the truth about what it feels like to be a woman in her mid-forties reinventing herself in real time.

Reinvention Is Not New to Me

The truth is, I am not scared to reinvent myself. I feel like I have lived three completely different lives in three completely different decades. Reinvention is not new; it’s almost a sport for me at this point. My twenties, my thirties, my forties. Each decade has handed me a new identity with a new set of instructions. I have learned to follow the breadcrumbs. I have learned to trust the pivots.

But this time it feels different. It feels bigger. It feels like a collective turning.

The Micro Generation That Gets It

I wanted a place to talk to the women who understand this micro-generation we belong to. The tiny sliver of humans who are not quite Gen X and definitely not Millennial. The ones who remember dial up internet and waiting for photos to develop. The ones who now have teenagers who ask us how to change their Apple IDs while we whisper silent prayers for patience. The women who are carrying aging parents and hormonal kids and the kind of exhaustion that only comes from being stretched in too many directions.

This is the group I want to talk to the most. Because we are not just growing through our forties. We get to grow through our fifties and our sixties and every decade after this. If I say I write for midlife, what happens when I am sixty-five and no longer in the middle of anything except maybe a crossword puzzle and a heated blanket? I do not want to build something that expires based on how many candles are on my cake. I want to build something we can grow inside of together.

The Messy Truth About This Season

I wanted a place where we did not have to pretend that everything is fine. Some days everything feels far from fine. Some days the house feels held together by laundry piles and half-finished conversations. Some days my hormones are having a rodeo downstairs while puberty is having a rave upstairs and no one is winning except the cats who get the didn’t-pass-the-smell-test ‘meal-prepped’ beef and rice.

This is the truth about midlife. It is messy. It is inconvenient. It is humbling. And also it is a creative renaissance if you let it be. There is something about this season that asks you to stop coasting. It forces you to look at the life you have built and decide if you want to keep living it or if you finally want to pivot toward something that feels more like you.

I am a multi-passionate woman who has never wanted to choose one lane. For years I thought that was a flaw. Now I think it is the reason I am still standing. Reinvention is not a cute brand word for me. It is survival. It is how I have gotten through every season of my life.
When things fall apart I build something.
When things feel heavy I create.
When things feel complicated I simplify.
When things feel too quiet I make noise.
This is who I am.

An Invitation to the Women in Between

Midlife. Messy. Grieving. Growing. Creating new things because that is what keeps me alive. Building spaces for women to gather because that is what feels meaningful. Telling the truth about this season because so many of us feel alone in it.

Xennial Girl is my invitation to the women who feel pressed between generations. The ones who grew up without the internet and now work inside it. The ones who are caring for parents while raising young adults. The ones who are smart enough to see the absurdity of it all and tender enough to admit that it is a lot.

If you feel overwhelmed and hopeful at the same time you are in the right place. If you feel nostalgic and restless you are in the right place. If you are reinventing yourself while also trying to figure out what to make for dinner you are in the right place.

I do not have it all figured out but I am building spaces where we can figure it out together. This is not a perfect project. It is a living one. It is a growing one. It is a place where your lived experience is respected and your evolving identity is welcome.

This is where my life has taken me. And this is where I am choosing to stay for a while. If you are a Xennial woman who feels a little cracked open by midlife, come in. Sit down. You are not late. You are right on time. We get to build every chapter from here on out together.

xoxo,

katy

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