Midlifers Saying the Quiet Part Out Loud with Dina Alvarez and Dina Aronson of Midlife Private Parts
Show Snapshot:
Midlifers are saying the quiet parts out loud—and we have stories that will make you laugh, cry, and feel like you've found your tribe. In this episode, writers, reinventors, and editors Dina Alvarez and Dina Aronson explore their book "Midlife Private Parts"—a series of revealing essays that will change the way you think about age. Dina and Dina spent two years gathering 27 contributors (including many ACA podcast favorites like Dr. Mary Claire Haver, Sarah Milken, Laura Belgray, and ACA host Katie Fogarty) to capture snapshots of midlife in all its magnificent, messy, comical glory. From hormone chaos to happiness breakthroughs, to sex and dating, recalibrating midlife friendships and marriages, to dabbling in cosmetic procedures, to the mixed bag of empty nesting, this collection serves up the midlife realness we all crave. We also explore what it took to bring this project to life, and why midlife is exactly the right time to become wildly visible, creative, and collaborative.
Show Links:
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The Book:
Midlife Private Parts: Revealing Essays That Will Change the Way You Think About Age
Quotable:
When you reach that space where you start realizing that there's more behind you than ahead of you, you really want to make the best use of your time. And so I really allowed myself to step out into the spotlight and began to become visible.
— Dina Alvarez
I want women to feel hopeful, and I want them to know that it is never too late. You are not too old to start something new, to imagine your life differently. Just because you've done one thing up until now doesn't mean that's what you have to do for the rest of your life.
—Dina Aronson
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 0:00
Katie, welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty. Today we are welcoming to the show two very dear friends of mine, Dina Alvarez and Dina Aronson, who are writers, reinventors, and the editors of a phenomenal new collection of essays that will change the way you think about aging and the emotional, physical, and relational shifts that come with midlife. "Midlife Private Parts" is a compendium of essays, wise words, and deeply relatable stories from 27 midlife women saying the quiet part out loud. When Dina and Dina reached out to me about writing an essay for this anthology, I was a very fast yes. I am so thrilled that the book is now out and about in the world, and I'm even more thrilled that Dina and Dina have joined me today to talk about what it took to bring this incredible project to life. Welcome to A Certain Age, Dina and Dina.
Dina Alvarez 1:00
Thank you, Katie. Thank you so much.
Katie Fogarty 1:05
It's so fun having you both. And it's actually funny—I was saying to my son, I'm getting ready to interview two of my friends, Dina Alvarez and Dina Aronson. And he's like, "Wow, they're both Dina A’s!" So this is going to make it a little tricky for our listeners, but I want to start by having each one of you quickly introduce yourself so our listeners can know who's speaking and begin to learn your voices. So Dina Alvarez, let's start with you.
Dina Alvarez 1:31
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you for having us on. We're both very excited. My name is Dina Alvarez. I have been in corporate America for about 20 years, but I've always loved creative endeavors, and I started my career also freelance writing for a publication called Big Apple Parent, which I adored, and quickly transitioned into founding my own publication called Somos Padres, which was a bilingual parenting publication for Hispanic families in New York City. I did that for about five years, ended up back in corporate, but found a need for creativity once again, and was lucky enough to find Dina Aronson and begin work together in earnest on this midlife anthology.
Dina Aronson 2:15
Hello, Katie. Thank you so much for having us on. This is such a treat to chat with you today about the book. I started my career as an attorney, but I quickly realized that was not what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I did, though, stay on the periphery of that industry for a long time. I went into law firm management, and then I owned a law firm search consultancy, or a lawyer search consultancy, for about 15 years. And as I was moving into my 40s, I was getting itchy, and I just didn't want to continue to do that for the rest of my life. I did always enjoy writing, and writing was always an integral part of those roles. I was telling stories—they just weren't my stories. I told my clients' stories. I told my candidates' stories, and I wanted to start to tell different kinds of stories. And at this time in my life, I wasn't seeing any stories that were reflecting my experience as a midlife woman and the things I was going through. So I started to think about how I could change that, and ultimately launched a blog called Patina in 2020. I set out to create community around that blog, and that's how I got into this. I felt like there was a space to fill, and that's what I set out to do.
Katie Fogarty 3:29
So you've both been longtime writers and bloggers over the years. It sounds like you've covered a wide range of topics—parenting, fashion, reinvention. What was the moment when you two decided that you needed to team up and bring a creative project specifically about midlife into the world?
Dina Aronson 3:45
So I think it bears telling our story, which we sort of refer to as the story behind the stories, because Dina Alvarez and I—we are midlife friends. We didn't meet until our 50s, and we came together through this midlife community. We ended up sort of on a blind date at a dinner with two other women that we had met actually online in this midlife space. And Dina and I had what I would call an instant connection, and we felt like kindred spirits from the beginning, and we, I think, immediately started to talk about creating together. But I don't know that there was a specific moment. I think that as we got to know each other, and we both knew we wanted to write, we decided there was a way to tell stories together. Dina had an idea for one book. I had an idea for a different book, and we kind of meshed that together.
Katie Fogarty 4:40
So Dina Alvarez, the book covers a range of topics—like a really wide range. It's midlife, it's reinvention, menopause, friendship, redefining style and purpose. We have essays that touch on dating after divorce, sexual pleasure, feeling invisible as we age, feeling powerful as we age. The book is broken into 12 chapters with essays grouped by theme. Did you and Dina set the themes, or did the themes emerge from the contributors?
Dina Alvarez 5:09
We actually did set the themes. We sat down together and we started plotting out what were the things that were important to us. There was a certain sense of "write the book you want to read"—what are the topics that were of interest to us? And many of them were, as you said, empty nest, reinvention, style at every age, figuring out how we want to live the next few years of our lives. So we really did sit together and plot out the chapters. And it was a very organic process. It was, "What are the things we're going through that we're also curious about?" Because everyone handles different topics differently, right? You go through menopause a different way than I do. You might have no issues with your style, because it's always been innate to you, but there's another woman who doesn't feel that way. And so we wanted to see both sides of the story, and it was about the difficult things in each theme, each chapter, but also about the triumphs. And we felt that these chapters spoke to all of those things—to being able to share the good and the bad.
Katie Fogarty 6:10
Yeah, the book does a wonderful job of really looking at both sides—the good and the bad—of midlife, what's exciting and optimistic, but also what's challenging and what's hard. And the essays range from being deeply, profoundly moving to hysterically funny. And I'm curious, Dina Aronson, was there an essay that made you kind of gasp or surprised you the first time you read it?
Dina Aronson 6:35
Oh gosh, so many of them stirred so many emotions. I think Marianne Adams' essay, where she chronicles this harrowing medical journey she went down—and it starts by her being admitted into a psych ward because she was experiencing years of illness and unwellness that she couldn't get diagnosed, and at the end of the day, she was in menopause. Her hormones were wacky. And this is something that we weren't talking about when she was going through it, and she endured just pain and trauma and couldn't get answers. And so that one really was impactful.
Katie Fogarty 7:21
That essay is so moving, and it's enraging, quite frankly. I mean, she really struggled and was sort of left adrift when the diagnosis should have been faster, easier, more readily at hand, and really would have eased her suffering. This essay collection is full of so many aha moments to me, and I enjoyed it so much. I think because memoir is absolutely, hands down, my favorite genre of books. I love hearing people's stories. And this essay collection is like a series of mini sort of micro-memoirs, which is why I think I loved it so much. Dina Alvarez, was there an essay that particularly spoke to you, and if so, why?
Dina Alvarez 8:02
I do agree with Dina that every essay brought something different to me. I felt that each one had a mini aha moment. I will say that Natalie Wester's "The Last Place I Ever Thought I'd Be," which is the closing note of the book, really was the moment for me where I thought, "Oh, this is the right book at the right time. We have to tell these stories of these women," because we have these views of women through social media, whether it's Instagram or—we think we know people, but we really don't. And then when you read an essay that someone pours their heart out into that you think you know, and you realize, "I had absolutely no idea what this woman has gone through and now how she's turned her life around and has become an inspiration to me." For me, that essay titled "The Last Place I Ever Thought I'd Be" really captured me, and it really spoke to me about how little we really do know about what's going on in people's lives. And that was a strong catalyst for me to really want to push and make this anthology what it is today.
Katie Fogarty 9:04
Yeah, that's such a beautiful closing chapter. And we do not know what people are going through. And we learn that in that essay. The title of your book is a nod to that. It's called "Midlife Private Parts." It's the stuff—the taboo topics that are not often talked about—a lot of things like menopause or divorce, feeling inadequate, or things that we don't share necessarily on social media, although that's beginning to change, and there are accounts that do. Did you always know that this was going to be the title, Dina Aronson, or were there other contenders?
Dina Aronson 9:38
This was not our original title, and it was our first lesson in "things don't always work out the way you think" in this industry, but in life in general, I guess, too. We started off with a different title, which was "Are You There God? It's Me, Midlife," and we liked it a lot, but it was not meant to be, and we settled on this. And I actually like this title even better, and I love the cheekiness of it, and I love how it speaks to the truth, which is we still don't talk about so much of this stuff. And I do think, mercifully, we are starting to with menopause. For instance, when I started researching for my blog five years ago, I would give you an estimate that 85% or more of the articles I was seeing on menopause were coming out of the UK. And so that has certainly changed. But as Dina and I were ideating, we came to this feeling like we are so much more than menopause, and yet there's still so much we're not talking about. I mean, Katie, you know, in my essay, I wrote about loss and grief—we don't talk about death in this culture. So there's so many things, and I feel like it's really important to give voice to these things, and to give women permission to have these conversations with themselves and with others, so that they can work through it, because some of this stuff is really hard. It's that duality. It's really hard, but we wanted to show that, in spite of that, it can be really incredible too. So yeah, I love the cheekiness of it, and we like to say the private parts out loud. And that's what we're trying to do here.
Katie Fogarty 11:16
Absolutely, you're doing it so well. We are heading into a quick break, but when we come back, I want to ask you both about the essays that you contributed to the collection. We'll be back in just a minute.
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Do you know we're back from the break? When we went into it, you were sharing that you wrote about your mother, you wrote about death and dying, and you shared that that is not something that we often talk about. In fact, I flagged a quote from your essay which says, "We didn't really talk about death and dying when I was growing up, although I sensed that my mom—present and mindful before the advent of meditation apps and self-help groups—was not afraid in the same way that I was then and in the way I remain throughout much of my adult life." So you literally wrote an essay about the things that we do not talk about enough. Was this something that helped you process and sort of reconcile and come to terms with the loss of your mother?
Dina Aronson 14:07
It definitely did. It's funny, I knew from the start that this is what I would write about. In fact, part of the impetus for me to really move forward with this with Dina was when my mom died, I felt like she had left a space open, and I felt very compelled to use that space to honor her in some way, and to create something meaningful, and hopefully something that will help other people. And so despite knowing that this is what I wanted to write about all along, it took me until the very end to write my essay. I do well with deadlines, but I think I was processing all along and metabolizing all along. And yes, finally pouring it out did help sort of process—and I won't say "close," because there's never closure to that kind of loss—but it definitely helped me to find clarity around it and to really voice what had been inside for those two years prior.
Katie Fogarty 15:14
Dina Alvarez, your essay begins with one of my favorite lines in the entire book. You say, quote, "A funny thing happened to me on my way to midlife: I ceased being invisible." Can you walk our listeners through this idea and what you mean?
Dina Alvarez 15:29
Well, it's funny. I've been a lifelong introvert, and I've always hidden from the spotlight. I've always been very happy to shine the spotlight on others. It's just not been a natural space for me. And there was something about turning 50, and also the pandemic, that really created a shift for me. I don't know if it was just suddenly this desire to put myself out there, to be seen, to connect with other women, to take up space, but I began posting on Instagram and building a community. And through that community was where I became semi-visible, where people enjoyed reading my long captions and writing, and would say, "What are you planning to write? A book?" And they really boosted me in ways that I had never felt before. And that's really a testament to midlife women, because it really came from them. And so little by little, I just began to really put myself out there and open myself up to conversations and feel more confident, and allow myself the space to appreciate who I am and what I have to offer. So turning 50 for me was really a pivoting time, and as well as the pandemic, where it gave me space to actually really go inside and think about what it was that I wanted to do with the next couple of years in my life. And so when you reach that space where you start realizing that there's more behind you than ahead of you, you really want to make the best use of your time. And so I really allowed myself to step out into the spotlight and began to feel very visible. And I also started really understanding that I was visible to the people that really mattered in my life, and that was the most important thing to me.
Katie Fogarty 17:01
The notion of visibility, I think, is so interesting because it's come up as a theme on this podcast with other guests in different capacities. And sometimes there's the conversation around becoming invisible as we age. Maybe there's loss of like sexual currency when you walk into a bar. But you know, frankly, I think most of us are like, "Who cares?" Like, you know, we no longer need that level of visibility, if we even needed it at all. But I find, ironically, just like you, Dina Alvarez, I feel even more visible in midlife than I ever have before, because I have a podcast that has global reach, and I'm having conversations with women ranging from reinventors to the former First Lady of Canada. It's just been incredible to be creating something that does—I don't want to say "raise your profile," because it's not about raising profile—but it's about becoming visible and connecting with audiences that care about what you care about. And I think that's what I've seen happen with my podcast, and what I know is happening with your book. When you are writing and telling the stories that women need to hear, you are becoming visible to the right people. And I'm curious—I know that midlife women are craving that. This is why they listen to my podcast. We see this reality reflected in the kind of media that we're consuming. We're seeing actresses that are older taking center stage. They're gracing magazine covers. But it's still sort of been a slow burn to recognize that there's a hunger to see midlife stories and midlife voices being centered. When you looked to first shop this book around to say, "I have an idea. We have 27 amazing midlife women with something to say," were you greeted with open arms, or did you have to work hard to convince people that there was an audience for this book? Dina Aronson, why don't you go first? I want to hear from both of you, actually. So let's start with her.
Dina Aronson 19:02
Sure. Were we greeted with open arms? That depends. Yes, in terms of the idea, there was a lot of really wonderful reception to it. And it's interesting, and I'll just give you a little background on our path. Initially, we had intended to self-publish the book. We thought, "We've got these amazing stories. It's so timely. We wanted to get it out there." And as we were putting it together and talking with contributors, one of our contributors said to us, "I don't know—no, you're not self-publishing this book. It's too important. It's too big." And so she put us in touch with an agent, and of course, we got excited about it. That agent didn't take us on, but we talked to a couple of others, and we found one. She's also a woman of a certain age. She's a little bit older than us, and she believed in the stories and in the book, and so that wasn't all that hard. But getting the book sold was another matter, and it took us almost a year to find a publisher for this book. So on one hand, amazing that we found this publisher to do it, but I didn't realize it was going to take a year. And I do think these stories are so timely and so relevant, but I don't know that the world has caught up. And we have come a long way. I just tell you a little anecdote—I have a friend who wrote a book in 2016 called "Your Best Age Is Now." Her name's Robbie Ludwig, and they wouldn't let her put "midlife" in the title. They wouldn't use the word. So we have made some progress, but we have a ways to go, and we're marching.
Katie Fogarty 20:41
Dina Alvarez, were you surprised that the process took longer?
Dina Alvarez 20:45
I'm not surprised. I think I had studied the book publishing business a little bit to know that it takes a while to sell a book, and you do have to go through several publishers saying no before you finally hit on one. But I think what made me feel really good about it was that I knew that there was a community out there who wanted the book, and that it would just be a matter of time to find the right one and to finally give birth to the book. Dina and I talk about this feeling of like you're really birthing a book, and so I wasn't surprised it took that long, to be honest. I'm glad it didn't take longer, but I think that it's just a process. The book publishing business is difficult to understand and manage, and there are a lot of moving pieces, and I think it just took as long as it needed to take. I think in the end, I just felt so grateful that we did find a publisher. And I'm really excited, because I know that there are a lot of women out there that want to read this book, and I know they're going to tell their friends about it, and it's the right book at the right time, and it happened when it happened, and that's how I look at how it sold and when it was time for it to.
Katie Fogarty 21:51
Listeners of this podcast are hopefully going to lift the book up and support it, because it's full of incredible voices, many who'll be familiar to A Certain Age listeners—a lot of guests that have appeared on the show are contributors to this book. The humorist Wendy Aarons, who writes for The New Yorker, McSweeney's, and who wrote a very phenomenal memoir of her own, "I'm Wearing Tunics Now," contributes. Laura Belgray, who wrote the bestselling book "Tough Titties," which is a hilarious sort of coming-of-middle-age story, coming-of-age story set in New York. Dr. Mary Claire Haver is there. Sarah Milken, who's got a phenomenal midlife podcast about sort of reinventing your midlife. Gabrielle Espinoza, Rachel Hughes, who both talk about menopause and midlife and sexuality and becoming comfortable in your body. And just a whole host of voices that I have not yet featured on the show that I would love to. Beauty OG Laura Geller contributes an essay about beauty. Skyler Liberty Rose, who I love, who I had on the podcast, who talks a lot about midlife and beauty and aging and sort of embracing ourselves fully as we age, has a phenomenal and marvelous essay. There's so many terrific voices in it. Is there a voice that you didn't get? Is there somebody that sort of got away? Are there plans for sort of a part two to this book?
Dina Aronson 23:14
I think that there are endless stories to tell, Katie, and we had a long list of topics—not all of them made it into the book. I mean, for instance, so many of us are dealing with this sort of sandwich generation, dealing with aging parents, with kids that are still at home. We just didn't get that one in. So maybe next time. And yeah, I mean, I think we would—we certainly talk about this idea of continuing this, maybe it becomes a nice little franchise. And I think there are lots of other avenues for these stories too. You know, there are other forums that they can be told in. I think many of them lend themselves nicely to—Katie, I've always said I could see your essay as a Hulu series with you screaming at your husband in the driveway in the opening scene. So we'll see. We'll see how this does.
Katie Fogarty 24:06
I'm envisioning that Hulu show. So for listeners who have not yet bought the book—and by the way, anyone who's listening, I hope you're going to hop over to Bookshop.org, or to Amazon, or to your local bookstore and purchase one of these books. I also hope you're going to be following Dina Aronson and Dina Alvarez on social because they will be doing book talks at different bookstores throughout the country over the course of the next few months. But if you do buy the book, you'll get to read my essay, and it was an essay that I wrote about a very particular time in my life when I was struggling with sort of late-stage, I guess, perimenopause, very much overwhelmed with my lack of sleep, my crazy, crazy mood swings that I was having, and the complete sense of overwhelm at the pandemic. And I wound up screaming at my husband in my driveway, "I want a divorce." And he says, "You do?" And I'm like, "Oh no. I just want to not be crazy. I want to not be overwhelmed. I want things to look different." And I wrote a lot about how when I launched this podcast and I put myself into spaces with other women who were offering resources and education and information about menopause, how angry I felt again that this information hadn't reached me in time when I could have been using it to kind of better manage my mood swings, which I call in the essay "my toxic rage." And the essay, I think, is a bit of a metaphor. It's about that moment in time, but it's also about looking around and thinking, "How did I get here? How did I get to this insane moment? How did I get to midlife? What have I learned? What's brought me here? Where am I going next? And how am I being as a woman in midlife in the world?" So it was interesting to go back and revisit that time. I wrote the essay probably four years after I'd had that moment. So we bring with that sort of wisdom in hindsight. And I'm grateful that I'm no longer there. But I also think I'm grateful as well that I was able to share this story, because after I had a podcast episode basically about sort of these bouts of toxic rage, I received so much outreach from women who were saying things like "me too. I also experienced that." And when you feel like you're going through it by yourself, it's a very lonely way to be. And when you feel like you're sharing it with the world, there's such a sense of community. What do you want a reader to leave with when they close the very last page of the book, the very last essay? Dina Alvarez?
Dina Alvarez 26:37
I want them to know that there are also triumphs at this phase in life, that there are really great outcomes that occur as well, and that 50 is not the end of anything—that you can view it as the beginning as well, and that it's all how you choose to reframe your life at the moment. So it's really about looking at the future with anticipatory good feelings. That's not the narrative that we're fed at midlife—that, "Oh my goodness, you know, it's the end." No, in fact, it could very much be a new beginning.
Katie Fogarty 27:11
Dina Aronson, what would you like a reader to leave with when they close the page for the last time?
Dina Aronson 27:15
I want them to feel hopeful, and I want them to know that it is never too late, and you're not too old to start something new, to imagine your life differently. Just because you've done one thing up until now doesn't mean that's what you have to do for the rest of your life. And so I want them to give themselves permission to focus on themselves, because many of us haven't up until now. We haven't had the space to do that. We've been taking care of everybody else. So I just really want them to have hope, and I want them to know that there's a lot of possibility in this time of life. And I want them to think about age as an opportunity and a privilege.
Katie Fogarty 27:58
You open the book with a series of quotes, and one of them is from Emily Dickinson, who says, "I dwell in possibility." How did bringing this book to life shift in any way what you see as possible for yourself? And I would love to hear from both of you on this. Dina Alvarez, would you like to go first?
Dina Alvarez 28:16
I think this has taught me that if you put your mind to anything, and you really want to do it, and you surround yourself with the right people, and you understand the beauty of collaboration, your chances of being successful are very, very high.
Katie Fogarty 28:32
I love that—collaboration over competition is a great lens through which to look at the world. How about you, Dina Aronson? What possibility are you dwelling in after having created this book?
Dina Aronson 28:44
Well, I mean, listen, I've learned what I'm capable of. I have learned that I am better when I am collaborating and surrounded, like Dina said, with the right people. And I think importantly, I've learned that you don't have to have all the answers to start something. If you have a passion, if you're feeling something deeply, there's no perfect moment to start it. Nobody has all the answers. Despite what you see when you go online and look at those perfect little squares, nobody has all the answers. So I've learned that you can figure it out. And I feel like I've always known this, but to actually hold a book in my hands that has been the product of two and a half years of work and collaboration—it's brought that home in a very real way.
Katie Fogarty 29:37
The book ends with a very powerful chapter. Dina Alvarez, you already talked about it—we learn that the essayist has gone through a very harrowing moment in her own life. And she goes on to say that she was in the last place she thought she'd ever be, which is, I believe, the title of that essay. Then she continues on to say, "But I had underestimated the power of tomorrow. Tomorrows keep taking me places I'd never thought I'd be, and yet here I am, again and again." And it reminded me of the Maya Angelou poem "Still I Rise." We still get to rise. There is always tomorrow. We always have the opportunity to sort of create anew. This book really showcases and spotlights that for women. It's full of joy and triumph and hardship and humanity and heart and humor. It's got all the H's. It's such a phenomenal book. I am so proud to be a part of it, and I'm so proud of you for assembling this collection of voices and for undergoing the two-and-a-half-year project to bring it to store shelves. So thank you so much for the invitation to be part of this project, and thank you so much for joining me today.
Dina Aronson 30:46
Thank you for having us. Thank you, Katie. This has been such a joy to talk with you about it, and we're so thrilled to have your voice in these pages.
Katie Fogarty 30:54
And I'm not letting you go without telling listeners where they can keep following you, learn more about the book, learn more about the book tour, and where they can get their hands on "Midlife Private Parts." Dina Alvarez, can you share that with our listeners?
Dina Alvarez 31:07
So you can find us at our website, at midlifeprivateparts.com, and you can find me on Instagram at @therightstyles, as well as on Substack under "A Few Good Things."
Dina Aronson 31:20
And I am Dina Aronson at @patina_life on Instagram and on Substack. You can find me at "Patina with Dina Aronson."
Katie Fogarty 31:31
Thank you so much. Thank you for the invitation to say the quiet part out loud about midlife. I so enjoyed having you both with me today.
Dina Alvarez & Dina Aronson 31:37
Thank you, Katie. Thank you, Katie.
Katie Fogarty 31:41
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. And if you enjoy this show, if you love tuning in every single Monday, connecting with and hearing from amazing midlife women, I know you will absolutely adore this essay collection, "Midlife Private Parts: Revealing Essays That Will Change the Way You Think About Age." And I know that all of the best recommendations in my own life come from my girlfriends. I get the name of doctors, restaurants, you know, the best babysitter for my kids when they were young, the sunblock that doesn't make you white, right? All of the most amazing, thoughtful, truest recommendations in your life come from your girlfriends. So if you buy the book and you enjoy it, and you are moved by it, it would mean so much to me and to all the women who contributed essays, if you would share it with your friends, right? Don't gatekeep on this. Spread the word, and bringing a book into the world takes so much work and effort. I so admire Dina and Dina for bringing this vision to life, for creating this project that's going to live on the bookshelves and nightstands of so many women. Kudos to Dina and Dina—help us spread the word. It would mean so much to me. Thanks for sticking around to the end of the show and, as always, special thanks to Michael Mancini, who composed and produced our beautiful theme music. See you next time and until then, age boldly, beauties.