Beautiful And Free

I made this Letter open to everyone just because it is about turning 50, and it is such a sweet moment in a woman’s life—so it’s just a little offering, from me to you <3

The advantage of having your midlife crisis at 40 is that by the time you get to 50, it takes a lot to make you panic. I turned 50 on Thursday, and the day before, I raised a glass to my chaotic forties.

3653 days, and not one of them behaved.

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My forties started with a disastrous relationship, the kind that makes your therapist raise an eyebrow and say “hhhmm.” My fiancé wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole and refused to pay for anything because I “was rich.” And since a bad relationship gives you bad ideas, we tried to have a baby together—an idea so clearly wrong it now feels more like a plot twist than a life plan.
It didn’t work, of course*.

Around the same time, a bit fed up with glory and success (who wouldn’t be!), I left a thriving career just to go to yoga classes in Los Angeles—sure, I was on the verge of burn-out, but when you look at it with the cold eyes of hindsight, it was less a spiritual awakening and more a slow-motion identity crisis in $120 leggings.

Like many fashionably unraveling people in L.A., I began collecting healers. I did it all. Silent retreats, hiking retreats, fasting retreats, cranio-sacral, psychics, colonics, psychologists, hypnotherapists, kundalini, astrologists, manifesting coaches, I even took mushrooms (did I ever tell you that story? Oh, it’s hilarious!) and I was one mantra away from trying ayahuasca. I didn’t—I’m probably wrong, but I just never felt like it was much more than a rebranded drug trip.

Good news, I didn’t join a cult. Instead, I culted myself into a depression trying to manifest a perfect life. Eventually, I surrendered—not to the universe, but to antidepressants. They worked, and I came out the other side with a clear mind and the fresh realization that Los Angeles was not, for me, the haven of peace and wellness I had envisioned.

Feeling better finally helped me see that the man definitely was, ahem, a narcissist not for me, and that’s how, one day, I broke up with him over a meatball.

I found myself alone in a peaceful house and started serially falling in love, specifically with another manboy, and then a manman, the two of whom only had in common the fact that they rejected me.

Sad, but certainly fit and impeccably dressed in my magazine-cover house, I finally realized that not working does have consequences. And that the mortgage I had taken—assuming we were going to be two, then three—was roughly the size of a small country’s GDP.

It wasn’t going to pay itself.

That’s how I came up with the genius idea of going back to work. Lucky me, jobs started pouring in, and I was already planning a year of flying first-class and being detestable all across the globe when the pandemic hit and stopped me right in my tracks. All my jobs were canceled, which felt so ominous that I decided to spend lockdown time all on my own for a final healing.

I wanted to work on myself and understand what life was trying to show me by taking everything away—manifestation has this way of making you feel like everything is about you, even a pandemic.

I pulled out my journals, my self-help books, all the podcasts I had earmarked, and, after the first hour, only found self-obsession and navel-gazing. This signaled the end of my “wellness girl era.” I finally accepted that I’d probably never be completely healed.

That, actually, healed me.

Now lonely and aimless, I tuned into Netflix and found Outlander. A month later, the man I had fallen in love with on the screen was sitting in my living room. Just when I was finally done with manifesting, I had manifested a husband. Or, as I prefer to say today—I’d been lucky.

Tssss. Don’t go thinking this is how my existential crisis ended. He was certainly magnificent, but he was also definitely older than I am, and took away my last dreams of maternity.

Cue the guilt (I’ve lived without thinking!), the shame (She doesn’t have it all!), and the science (WHY NOT, we have technology!). I flirted with IVF, toyed with fate, and ran through every cliché of the late-blooming woman who maybe wants a baby but also maybe wants to…

Just be.

To wrap this most intriguing decade, I decided that England was the answer to the remnants of my questions, and that a fabulous house in the countryside would be the perfect bow to wrap up my story—just give me my bloody happy ending already! Just to add a little spice though, we almost bought a house in Spain but ended up in Morocco—by way of Paris.

Unfortunately, it seems like my destiny is not about anything being neat and perfectly wrapped.

This is how you find me today, in the midst of moving out of our perfect English countryside house. Because as beautiful as it is—and as melancholy as I am—it turns out it wasn’t it.

What a mess, I sometimes think.

But the truth is, what came out of this chaos is priceless.

Because, really, I’ve been happy without children. I’ve been happy discovering the world through living in each place, giving time to all these landscapes and all these cultures. I’ve been happy kissing frogs and crying / laughing about it endlessly with my friends.

I’ve been happy through career highs and quiet humiliations. I have felt joy and pain, I have felt crowded and I have felt so, so, so lonely. I’ve been selfish and mean. But I’ve also been open, courageous, generous and kind. I’ve built a life on my own terms. I’ve met wonderful people along the way. I’ve deepened bonds—with others, and with myself.

I’ve been happy, because I’ve been so alive.

And I’ve learnt a few things. Here they are, in no specific order.

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Live in the present.

Animals are divinities. As often as you can, look into their eyes.

But stay real—big dogs = big poops.

Don’t try to dissect and strategize everything—sometimes the best decisions are made because we didn’t weigh the pros and cons. Give yourself the chance to make a decision you’ll understand in ten years.

Save money.

Don’t feel like you have to explain yourself.

Don’t order a margarita in an English pub.

You don’t need a ten-step routine.

Focusing on what you can’t have is the path to misery. Embrace what you have and make it wonderful.

Don’t measure life in babies, houses, or relationships. Measure it in moments.

Fashion is 99% about how good we feel in our bodies.

Sleep outside, once in a while.

People will talk, whatever you do—so do whatever you want.

After forty, always have tweezers around. Buy ten pairs; place them strategically.

Don’t be a martyr—suffering doesn’t make you a good person, nor does it get you what you want.

Find a way to gather people around you.

There is no perfect place to live. To have the good, you must be okay with the bad.

Forgive your parents early.

Stuff weighs us down. Choose well what you hold on to.

Travel light.

Love people as best you can, but don’t hold yourself to the impossible.

Cheese, green salad, and a great bottle of wine is a perfect dinner.

It’s the effort, the care, and the sacrifices we put into something that make it precious.

Don’t let anyone guilt you into anything.

Move your body every day.

Don’t use retinol in the summer.

Allow your contradictions. Be kind and driven, hardworking and lazy, giving and guarded.

Go where you are loved and treated well.

Make fun of yourself often.

Try to like yourself. One day, you might wake up loving yourself.

Celebrate small wins.

Expect chaos.

Savor peace.

Magic is everywhere.

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I never thought life could be so rich and so fun. I never thought that I would feel younger, lighter, unencumbered, and more excited about life than I was ten years ago. Getting older is good. However old you are, I hope this message reaches you.

I hope you feel alive.

And beautiful.

And free.

*I wrote about this in Lenny Letter but the publication is now gone and they removed all the archives. I’ll find it an republish it here :)

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Disheveled, no make up and dirty hair but totally okay with what’s unfolding… And with the nice weather!

Hello from Somerset! This is the last weekend (ever!!!) in our house—tonight, we’re having friends over for—you guessed it—cheese and wine. We’ll drink to endings and beginnings—and ok, a little bit to my big birthday.

I am so happy to be part of a generation where things feel softer—it feels easy to be 50. Let’s see what the years to come have in store for me—you know I’m keeping you in the loop ;)

Our live next week will be on Tuesday—Wednesday and Thursday are the days of the actual move so I might be slightly busy! I can’t wait to chat with you.

I know it’s a holiday weekend, and I hope that you’re having a wonderful time, wherever you are. Big huge kiss!

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My last Letter was the third edition of my catch up newsletters! I hope you liked it. You can read the previous two editions here and here.

My last Note was about Mother’s Day and the sometimes complicated feelings that can bubble up—no matter if you’re a mother or not.

If you want to read more about what I’ve written about motherhood throughout the (almost!!!) 5 years of this wonderful community, follow the link here❤️

In our last Live, we talked about so many things! Beauty, botox, our community, the messy things I am trying to solve, and SO MUCH MORE!

Let’s meet again on Tuesday, May 6th, at 5pm UK time!

To be able to join our lives, download the app below and let me know if you need help!

This month, Doré turns 3!!! To celebrate, we brought back our best-selling Le Trio—the very first bundle we launched, ever. And this time, at its best price! It’s for a limited time only and you can find it here.

If you want to submit a question for me, you can write it here and I will reply in a future Q&A.

Big kisses and have a wonderful weekend!!!