Kim Howell

On what caretaking costs us — and the buried grief we finally have to face. There's a version of midlife we were promised. The kids launch. The house gets quiet. You finally turn back toward the goals you shelved for twenty years. Then the phone rings, or you open a filing cabinet you didn't know existed, and you realize: this isn't the chapter you were promised. This is the one where you parent the people who were supposed to parent you — while grieving a love you're not sure you ever fully...

When everything fades, what actually remains There are moments in life that divide everything into before and after. Ten days ago was one of those moments for our family. We lost my mother-in-law— suddenly. She was the type of woman whose presence was noticeable... even in silence. When someone like that is gone, you don’t just feel grief. You feel perspective. I talk a lot about midlife. The changes. The weight. The stress. The energy. I’ve built a foundation around helping women navigate...

If you’ve reached a point where the scale hasn’t changed much but your midsection suddenly feels different , you’re not imagining it. Many women in their 40s and 50s notice that weight begins to settle around the belly — even when their habits haven’t changed much. You may still be eating reasonably well. You may still be exercising. Yet the belly area seems… stubborn. One reason often overlooked is cortisol , the body’s primary stress hormone. In many cases, belly fat and cortisol become...