Meet The Heroines
Journal Prompt - You were never meant to be just one of them. You're already several at once.
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These are the Heroines of this world.
Midlife archetypes, drawn from private conversations, course breakthroughs, quiet rebellions, and the raw, radiant second acts I’ve watched happen again and again. They’re not aspirational clichés or polished ideals. They’re flawed, fierce, funny, and figuring it out.
From now on, they’ll live in the margins of these essays. You’ll find them in the image at the top of every post, sometimes in the background of another’s story. A recurring cast. You’ll start to recognise them. That’s the point.
You can read more about each of them below.
Now here’s where most people would ask you: which one are you?
I’m not going to ask you that. Because it’s the wrong question, and answering it would make you smaller.
You are not one of these women. You’re several of them, right now, because you are not living one story. You’re living all of them at once. A different journey for your work, your body, your marriage, the thing you’re grieving, the thing you’re building. Each one its own arc. Each one at its own chapter. Each one with a different heroine walking beside it.
Let me show you what I mean, using mine.
This month, I’m at the Call to Adventure — and I’m refusing it.
We’re losing our home in The Bahamas. Well, we have chosen to sell it, so it’s not losing so much as passing on, but it’s tough. I know the chapter I’m in because I teach it. As of July 15th (closing day), it’s time to cross the threshold, take the journeys of discovery, go and find what replaces a place that can’t be replaced. And I am standing very still at that door, grieving, overwhelmed, not opening it. That’s Faye walking this one with me. The Shadow Whisperer doesn’t rush you across. She stands at the closed door and lets it be closed for as long as you need it closed.
At the same time, I’m Gaining Allies.
The Story Room Magazine and Salon is a different journey entirely, and it has a completely different energy and a totally different companion. Here I’m building. I’m creating a room full of writers, thinkers and creatives. I’m gathering y allies as so many heroines do before their big adventures. That’s Mara, the Mapmaker, vision board curling, checklist ticked, already half-booked. A different heroine, because a different journey.
And underneath both, I’m on the Road of Trials.
My fiction has gone quiet. All this traveling means no time, and no rhythm, and if I’m honest, the desire has cooled too. The practice is right there and I keep not returning to it. That’s Lark: the dance shoes still in the box, the notebook open to a hidden first page. The Road of Trials isn’t dramatic. Sometimes it’s just the thing you love, waiting for you until you are ready to return.
Three heroines. One woman. One ordinary June morning.
That’s what they’re for. They’re not a quiz, a box, or a type you get assigned and have to live up to. The Heroines are a language. They’re a way to name where you’re standing on each of your journeys when you didn’t have the words. A way to locate yourself without shrinking yourself to one small thing. And they represent company - because someone has stood at every one of these doors before you, flawed and figuring it out, and they’ve kept going. Just like you will.
So when you see one of them at the top of an essay from now on, read her as a signpost. This is the territory we’re in today. The closed door. The curling map. The unworn shoes. She’s telling you which chapter the piece is about, and asking, gently, whether you’re standing in that chapter too, on one of your own journeys.
JOURNAL PROMPT:
Don’t pick a heroine. Pick three journeys that genuinely live in your life right now (a project, a relationship, a body, a grief, a thing you’re building). For each one, ask:
What chapter am I in? (Call to Adventure? Gaining Allies? The Road of Trials?)
Which heroine is walking it with me?
What can I learn from having that Heroine beside me as company.
That’s the writing.
Their stories aren’t finished. Neither is yours.
So who’s walking with you this week?
Mara - The Successful but Unfulfilled
“She has the life she always wanted. Why does it feel so empty?”
Mara did it all right. Great job, retired early, good pensions, and a beautiful home. But as she and her husband walk the beach at sunset, her eyes drift toward the horizon with a sense of ache. Is this it? There’s a fire in her that hasn’t burned out, some call it restlessness, but Mara knows it’s the beginning of something.
Signature Feeling: Lost but longing
Cleo - The People Pleaser
“The caregiver who’s ready to take care of herself, for the first time ever.”
Cleo’s entire life has been an act of loving performance. Birthday cakes, doctor’s appointments, late-night emotional triage. She’s loved every minute with her three kids and handled it all with grace. But now? The silence in her empty house echoes with a question: What do I want? She’s still cooking dinner for a husband who barely looks up from his iPad. Her aging parents call her for help or information three times a day. And Cleo? She’s standing in the kitchen, holding a spatula like a sword, daring to dream of freedom.
Signature Feeling: Bone-deep exhaustion
Juno – The Multi-Passionate Oracle
“The creative fairy learning to believe she’s not ‘too much.’”
Juno is a burst of glitter and post-it notes. She has a laptop filled with half-written books, business ideas, and sudden obsessions. She’s always had a million things she wanted to do. But since her Mom died, the world’s gone foggy. Her sparkle feels dimmed. She’s searching for a through-line, something to anchor all the magic. What if she stopped trying to choose and instead embraced being multi-everything?
Signature Feeling: Scattered with sparks
Tess – The Invisible Achiever
“What happens when the overachiever finally runs out of assignments?”
Tess built her identity on competence. Her calendar was always full, her inbox always at zero. But when the job was snatched away from her, unexpectedly and without ceremony, so did the scaffolding of her self-worth. Now, she sits in her home office staring at the empty inbox she didn’t clear. She’s unsure whether to polish her resume again or enjoy a mini-nervous breakdown. Beneath the tailored exterior? A woman desperate to feel seen, not just for her output, but for her soul.
Signature Feeling: Accomplished but unseen
Rox – The Strong One
“She’s done being strong for everyone else. Now it’s her turn.”
Rox has always been the rock. The dependable one. All her friends know that Rox fixes things. It was Rox who held her siblings up while letting her own dreams slip through the cracks. She was strong for her husband, too, but now he wants something softer. Divorce didn’t break her, but it cracked something open. She’s suddenly not the wife, not the cheerleader, not the wall everyone leans on. And that terrifying, thrilling freedom? It’s a blank page.
Signature Feeling: Restless and righteous
Faye – The Wounded Wise Woman
“She knows what others need. Now she’s learning to ask for what she needs, too.”
Faye feels things deeply, too deeply, she’s been told. Her empathy is a superpower and a wound. She’s the one friends call for soulful advice, but her own truth lies buried under years of emotional caretaking and silent suffering. Her traumas (both little “t” and big “T”) are uncovered and unconfronted. Now, she’s unraveling in private. She’s anxious, exhausted, and desperate for a healing that goes deeper than affirmations.
Signature Feeling: Quiet ache
Nico – The Identity Shifter
“She’s worn a thousand masks. Now, she’s choosing her own face.”
Nico is a master of becoming what others need. The cool girlfriend. The adaptable coworker. The “easy” daughter. She’s been loved for her flexibility and admired for her independence. She’s been hailed as “low maintenance.” Now, facing life alone, she’s left with a question she’s never dared to answer: Who am I, really? With no one to perform for, Nico finally hears the silence beneath the shapeshifting. And she’s starting to wonder… maybe it’s not emptiness, perhaps it’s possibility.
Signature Feeling: Reinventing or running?
Lark – The Wildhearted Late Bloomer
“The rule-follower who’s finally ready to color outside the lines.”
Lark played by the rules. She sacrificed her own creative dreams because she believed she had to. Now, with her kids out of the house and her role as mother in limbo, she stares at the life she chose, wondering, “What if I had chosen differently?” The rules are still there, but for the first time, she’s considering breaking them.
Signature Feeling: Radiant fear
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