I’m beginning to think that some of the best parts of our lives are the parts we barely notice.

The first sip of coffee while the house is still quiet.
The way the light moves across the kitchen floor.
A conversation with Mitch that starts out about nothing and somehow lasts twenty minutes.
Something simmering on the stove.
Walking into the garden and noticing something bloomed.
A familiar song coming on at exactly the right moment.

Nothing remarkable.

And yet, maybe everything.

We spend so much of our lives anticipating what comes next.

What needs to get done. Where we need to be. What we’re making for dinner. What we’re working toward. The next weekend, the next trip, the next season of our lives.

Even in a beautiful moment, our minds can already be somewhere else.

I catch myself doing it.

Drinking the coffee while thinking about work. Walking through the garden while making a list in my head. Sitting with someone I love while part of me is already thinking about what I need to do when I get up.

And lately I’ve been wondering:

What am I rushing toward?

Because this is it.

Not someday when everything is finished and the list is finally crossed off.

This ordinary Thursday.

The coffee.
The conversation.
The dinner we’ve made a hundred times.
The walk to the shop.
The sound of someone I love laughing from another room.

This is the life.

I don’t think being present means moving through life at some impossibly slow pace. We have businesses to run, people who need us, appointments to make and laundry that somehow keeps appearing.

Maybe presence is simply noticing while we’re here.

Looking at the person talking to us instead of reaching for our phone.

Sitting at the table for another five minutes.

Actually tasting what we cooked.

Opening the window because the air feels good.

Using the beautiful cup on an ordinary morning.

Letting a good moment be enough without needing to turn it into anything else.

There is so much emphasis on creating a beautiful life.

Maybe we already have one.

Maybe we just keep missing pieces of it because we’re looking ahead.

I want to get better at staying.

Staying in the conversation.
Staying at the table.
Staying in the garden a little longer.
Staying with the ordinary moment before reaching for the next one.

Because one day, I imagine, these will be the things we miss.

Not the things we rushed toward.

The little things we almost rushed past.

So today, I’m paying attention.

To what is already here.

Because perhaps a beautiful life isn’t made only from the big moments we remember.

It’s made from all the small ones we were present enough to notice.

 

-Natalie

I am tired of being told that aging is something we should be trying to outrun. Reverse it. Erase it. Correct it. Tighten it. Lift it. Prevent anyone from knowing it happened. At some point, can we just let women age?

I’m not talking about giving up on ourselves. Quite the opposite. Take care of your skin. Feed it well. Moisturize it. Protect it from the sun. Move your body. Eat beautiful food. Get your sleep. Wear the lipstick. Use the face oil. Do the things that make you feel good when you look in the mirror. But maybe we could stop asking all of those things to make us look younger.

There is a difference between caring for ourselves and trying to erase ourselves. And I think we’ve blurred that line.

I love skincare. Obviously. I’ve spent years creating it. But I don’t believe the purpose of skincare is to keep your face frozen at 35. Skin changes. It gets drier. It gets thinner. It loses some of its bounce. Lines settle in places they didn’t used to. The face looking back at you changes because you have changed. That isn’t a skincare failure. That is being alive.

And yet we are surrounded by an industry—and increasingly a culture—that keeps pointing us backward. Look how you used to look. Look at this old photograph. Look at your jawline then. Look at your eyes then. Look at your body then. It feels like spending an awful lot of our lives looking in the rearview mirror.

And I keep wondering: What are we missing right in front of us?

Because this version of me is here now. This face. This body. This life. And she deserves my attention too.

I don’t want to spend my 50s wishing for my 30s, only to arrive in my 70s and realize how young 54 actually was. I want to be here for it.

There is something freeing about deciding that youth is no longer the prize. Health is. Vitality is. Curiosity is. Feeling comfortable in your own skin is. Being surrounded by people you love is. Still wanting to learn and make things and cook dinner and sit in the garden and laugh until your stomach hurts is. A face cannot tell you whether a woman has those things.

Maybe graceful aging isn’t about preserving what was. Maybe it’s about caring beautifully for what is.

So yes, take care of your skin. Love the skin you’re in enough to care for it well—not because you’re desperately trying to make it look like the skin you had twenty years ago, but because this skin belongs to you now.

And perhaps instead of constantly asking how we can look younger, we could start asking a much more interesting question: How do I want to live as I grow older?

That feels like a future worth looking toward.

Just let us age. I think we might actually be quite beautiful at it.

 

- Natalie

I love being alone.

I genuinely do. I love a quiet house. A morning to myself. Working in the studio with music playing. Walking through the garden without needing to talk to anyone. I’ve always believed there is something important about being comfortable in your own company.

And I still believe that.

But lately I’ve been thinking about the other side of being well: each other.

Our brains are wired for connection. Long before wellness became something we practiced individually—with routines and rituals and all the things we do to take care of ourselves—human beings survived by belonging to one another.

We gathered. We shared food. We cared for each other’s children. We told stories. We worked beside one another. We sat together through births and deaths and celebrations and ordinary afternoons.

We needed each other.

And we still do.

There is something that happens when we are with people who make us feel safe and seen. We settle. We laugh. We exchange ideas. We tell a story and realize someone else has lived it too.

We nourish each other.

We inspire each other.

We comfort each other.

Sometimes another person reminds us of something we have forgotten about ourselves.

I think our culture has made independence such a virtue that we can forget there are things we simply cannot give ourselves. You can learn to enjoy your own company. You can create beautiful rituals. You can take care of your body, feed yourself well, go for the walk, put down the phone, tend the garden.

All of that matters.

But none of it replaces belonging.

Maybe that is why I have watched our little shop become something I never really planned for it to become.

When we opened our doors in Warrenton, I thought of the shop primarily as a physical expression of Love + Be Well—a place where you could experience what we had created online in real life.

But people came in.

And they stayed.

They talked to us. They talked to each other. They shared pieces of their lives. We began gathering in the garden. We shared food and music and conversations. And somewhere along the way I realized that what was happening between people mattered every bit as much as what was sitting on the shelves.

It has made me think differently about what it means to be well.

Skincare can nourish the skin. Food can nourish the body. Solitude can nourish the soul.

And people nourish us too.

Maybe wellness was never supposed to be entirely solitary.

Perhaps we need both.

The quiet morning alone and the long conversation across the table.

The walk by ourselves and the chair pulled into the circle.

The ability to come home to ourselves and a place where we know we belong.

I don’t want a life filled with constant activity or endless socializing. I still need plenty of quiet. Probably always will.

But I understand connection differently now.

It isn’t something extra we fit into our lives when we have time.

It is part of being human.

And perhaps part of being well is remembering that we were never meant to get everything we need from ourselves.

Come home to yourself.

And sometimes, come sit with us.

 

- Natalie

Lately, I’ve found myself looking at old things differently. The glass candy dish that belonged to someone before me. The mismatched plates. Old music playing in the kitchen. Movies I’ve seen so many times I already know what comes next. Things I’ve had for years suddenly seem to carry more weight. More meaning.

And I caught myself wondering recently: Is this just age? Have I officially entered my nostalgia era?

Maybe. But I think there’s something more to it.

Because I don’t actually want to go backward. I don’t believe everything was better then. It wasn’t. Every generation has a tendency to polish its memories around the edges and forget the harder parts. What I miss—or perhaps what I’m appreciating more—is the feeling that things lasted.

You had things long enough for them to become part of the family. A candy dish wasn’t replaced because another one appeared in your feed. The dishes got chipped and stayed in the cupboard. Furniture collected scratches. Recipes were made so many times nobody needed to look at the recipe anymore.

And music belonged to particular chapters of your life. There are songs I can hear today and immediately remember a room I haven’t stood in for decades. I can remember the people. Sometimes I can almost remember the way the air felt. That’s the strange thing about nostalgia. It can collapse forty years into about four seconds.

When you’re younger, I don’t think you always understand why people hold onto things. It’s just a bowl. Just a photograph. Just some old dishes. Then one day, it isn’t.

The glass candy dish becomes the house it sat in. The sound the lid made when someone lifted it. What was usually inside. The hands that reached into it. An ordinary object somehow became a witness.

And maybe that’s why I’m increasingly drawn to the imperfect things in my own home. The chipped plate. The old serving bowl. The pieces that don’t match. The things that show evidence of having had a life. I don’t want a home—or a life—that looks like everything arrived yesterday. I want some history in the room.

I also wonder if this feeling has something to do with the world we’re living in now. Everything moves incredibly fast. We’re shown something new before we’ve even had time to appreciate what we already have. New clothes. New kitchens. New beauty. New restaurants. New trends. New things we’re apparently supposed to want.

Buy it. Use it. Replace it. Move on.

And somewhere in the middle of all that newness, I’ve become increasingly interested in the opposite. Things that have stayed. Things that have been repaired. Recipes passed around a family. Music someone loved before I did. A table that has hosted hundreds of meals. A dish that somehow survived three generations. There is something reassuring about an object that existed before today’s algorithm and will probably exist after it.

And then there is age.

At some point, you realize you’re standing somewhere in the middle of your family’s story. There are people behind you whose voices you can still hear if you think about them long enough. And now there are people coming after you.

That changes things.

You begin to understand that you’re not simply the recipient of your family’s history anymore. You’re one of its keepers. You decide which recipes continue. Which stories get told. Which traditions survive. Which ridiculous old dish gets handed down with the very important instruction: Don’t you dare get rid of this.

And perhaps that’s what I’m feeling. Not a desire to live in the past. A desire for continuity.

I’ve always believed in using the good things. Drink from the beautiful glass. Light the candle. Put dinner on the old plates. Wear the jewelry. Use the linen napkins on a Tuesday. I don’t want the things I love preserved so carefully that nobody actually gets to love them.

Maybe that’s part of preservation too. Not putting something away. Keeping it alive. Making another meal with it. Playing the record again. Watching the old movie. Telling the story one more time. Adding another scratch to the table.

And one day, perhaps someone will hold one of the ordinary things from my life and discover that somewhere along the way, it stopped being ordinary to them too.

So yes. Maybe I’ve entered my nostalgia era.

But I’m beginning to think it’s something else.

Maybe I’ve entered my preservation era.

Not wanting to go backward. Just wanting to make sure the good stuff comes with us.

— Natalie

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There comes a point in life when you begin to understand that having people around you and having your people are two very different things.

When we’re younger, so many of our relationships are chosen for us.

School puts us together.

Our children become friends, so we become friends.

We work beside one another.

We live in the same neighborhood.

We find ourselves at the same soccer games, birthday parties, weddings, committees, dinner tables.

Proximity creates relationship.

And some of those relationships become extraordinary.

Others simply belong to a particular chapter.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve started thinking differently about the people I choose to bring close.

Not how many.

Who.

History is not always intimacy

There is something beautiful about being known for a long time.

Someone who remembers you at twenty-five.

Someone who knew your children when they were small.

Someone who was there before the career, the marriage, the move, the loss, the reinvention.

History matters.

But history and intimacy aren’t necessarily the same thing.

We can know someone for thirty years and still only know the version of them we met thirty years ago.

We can see someone every week and never ask what is happening inside them.

And we can meet someone later in life and recognize almost immediately that there is room here for something real.

I’ve stopped believing that the length of a relationship is always the measure of its depth.

Sometimes it is.

Sometimes it isn’t.

We change

Perhaps that’s what makes relationships so interesting as we get older.

We’re changing.

Hopefully.

The things I wanted years ago aren’t necessarily what I want now.

The things I tolerated may no longer fit.

Things I once thought were terribly important have become almost meaningless to me.

And things I barely noticed before have become some of the most precious parts of my life.

Quiet.

Home.

A table.

A meaningful conversation.

Being around people with whom I can exhale.

When we change, our relationships have to make room for that change too.

Some do beautifully.

There are people who remain curious about us.

They don’t insist that we continue playing the role we’ve always played.

They allow us to surprise them.

They make room for the person we’re becoming.

And we do the same for them.

Those relationships deepen.

Others become harder to inhabit.

Not necessarily because anyone has done something wrong.

Sometimes we’ve simply grown in different directions.

Not every relationship needs to come with us

I think this can be difficult to accept.

Especially if we’re loyal.

We can feel as though every relationship that once mattered must continue to matter in exactly the same way forever.

But perhaps relationships have seasons too.

Some people walk beside us for decades.

Some arrive for a chapter.

Some teach us something.

Some help us survive something.

Some make us laugh during a season when we desperately need to laugh.

Some introduce us to a part of ourselves we had forgotten.

And then sometimes the relationship changes.

That doesn’t make what it was meaningless.

It doesn’t mean there needs to be anger or some dramatic ending.

Sometimes we can simply be grateful for what someone was in our life without requiring them to remain there in the same way.

There is tenderness in that.

Fewer, but deeper

I hear people talk about having smaller circles as they get older.

Usually it’s said with a little sadness.

I’m not sure I see it that way.

Maybe we’re becoming more discerning about where we place our time.

Time feels different now.

An evening feels valuable.

A Sunday afternoon feels valuable.

A seat at my table feels valuable.

My energy feels valuable.

Not in a guarded, transactional way.

Quite the opposite.

Because when we understand the value of those things, we can give them more intentionally.

I don’t want to spend all of my time maintaining a large collection of acquaintances simply so my life appears full.

I’d rather know a few people deeply.

I’d rather sit at a table where the conversation eventually gets past the weather.

I’d rather have someone ask me the second question.

I’d rather be able to say the real thing.

And I want to offer that same kind of friendship in return.

How do you feel after being with someone?

Maybe this is one of the simplest questions.

How do you feel when you leave?

Not whether they impressed you.

Not whether the restaurant was good.

Not whether you laughed enough.

How did you feel?

Did you feel more like yourself?

Did you feel heard?

Were you curious about them?

Did you leave knowing something you didn’t know when you arrived?

Could you disagree without something becoming threatened?

Could there be silence?

Did you feel as though you needed to perform?

Were you exhausted from trying to be understood?

Or did something inside you settle?

I think our bodies often recognize belonging before our minds do.

There are people around whom we brace.

And there are people around whom we exhale.

I’m paying more attention to that.

Choosing goes both ways

Of course, it’s easy to make a list of what we want from other people.

Someone who listens.

Someone curious.

Someone honest.

Someone who shows up.

Someone who celebrates us without comparison.

Someone who can sit beside us when life isn’t beautiful.

Someone who lets us change.

But friendship asks the same of us.

Am I that person?

Do I remember?

Do I check in?

Do I ask another question?

Do I make space for someone else’s story without turning it into mine?

Do I celebrate the person they’re becoming even if their life begins to look different from mine?

Do I make the invitation?

Do I show up?

We can’t spend our lives waiting to find extraordinary friends without asking whether we’re becoming one.

The courage to choose

There can be guilt around all of this.

Around saying no.

Around not accepting every invitation.

Around recognizing that a relationship no longer feels reciprocal.

Around wanting something deeper.

But choosing our relationships intentionally doesn’t mean becoming exclusive or closed.

We can be warm to many people.

We can welcome people.

We can have beautiful conversations with strangers.

We can share meals and stories and moments with people who may never become part of our inner lives.

Not everyone we enjoy needs to become one of our closest people.

That’s okay.

The door can be open without every person having a key.

And keep leaving room

This may be the part I don’t want to lose as I get older.

Discernment can become a wall if we’re not careful.

We can become so comfortable with our people, our homes, our routines and our little worlds that we stop leaving room for anyone new.

I don’t want that either.

Because some of the people who may know us most deeply might not have arrived yet.

I love that thought.

There may still be someone we haven’t met who will one day sit at our table and become part of our story.

A friendship we couldn’t have had at thirty because we hadn’t become these people yet.

So perhaps the answer isn’t to close the circle.

It’s to tend to it carefully while leaving a chair or two open.

The people we choose

This little series began with a question:

How many people really know you?

Then came another:

Are we truly listening to one another?

And another:

Are we courageous enough to let ourselves be known?

Maybe this is where those questions lead.

Toward the people with whom we’re willing to practice all of it.

The people we listen to.

The people we let listen to us.

The people we keep discovering.

The people who keep discovering us.

The people with whom we can laugh about absolutely nothing one minute and talk about everything the next.

The people who don’t require the polished version.

The people who make us want to put our phones away and stay at the table a little longer.

Maybe a rich life isn’t measured by how many people know our name.

Maybe it’s measured, in part, by the handful of people who know our heart.

Choose them well.

Love them well.

And always leave a little room at the table for someone you haven’t met yet.

There is something that comes after listening.

After someone asks the second question.

After they put down their phone, look you in the eye and give you their full attention.

After they create the space for you to tell the truth.

You still have to decide whether you will.

I’ve been thinking about this as a continuation of my recent conversations here about connection.

First, I wondered how many people really know us.

Then I began thinking about how well we listen to one another. How rarely we ask the deeper question. How much connection might be waiting for us if we became more curious about the person sitting across from us.

But there’s another side to all of this.

We can long to be known and still spend much of our lives making sure no one gets too close.

The versions of ourselves

I think most of us have versions of ourselves.

There’s the version we bring to work.

The one we bring to dinner.

The one our family knows.

The one old friends expect.

The one we offer when we walk into a room where we don’t quite feel like we belong.

Maybe this is especially true for those of us who are sensitive to the people around us.

We read the room.

We notice what makes someone comfortable. We sense what is expected. We know when to be quieter, when to be funny, when to keep something to ourselves.

And somewhere along the way, adapting can become so instinctive that we don’t even realize we’re doing it.

We’re not necessarily pretending.

We’re editing.

Offering the pieces of ourselves that fit.

And then wondering why we sometimes leave a room full of people feeling strangely unseen.

Being liked is not the same as being known

This is an uncomfortable distinction.

Because being liked feels good.

Being known can feel terrifying.

To be liked, we can show someone the parts of ourselves that are easiest to love.

To be known, eventually we have to show them the rest.

The uncertainty.

The contradictions.

The opinion we aren’t sure they’ll agree with.

The dream that feels a little ridiculous when we say it out loud.

The thing we’re struggling with even though, from the outside, everything looks fine.

The parts of ourselves that are still becoming.

That’s different.

There is risk in it.

Because once someone sees the real thing, we no longer have the comfort of thinking, Well, they would understand me if they really knew me.

They know.

And now we wait to see if they stay.

Maybe that’s why being known requires courage.

“I’m fine.”

How many times have you said it?

I know I have.

How are you?

I’m good.

Conversation over.

And sometimes we really are good.

But sometimes someone has unknowingly opened a door and we close it before they ever have the chance to walk through.

Maybe because the grocery store isn’t the place.

Maybe because we don’t trust that person with the real answer.

Both are completely reasonable.

But sometimes?

Maybe we simply don’t know how to answer honestly anymore.

We’ve become so accustomed to the polished response that when someone genuinely asks, No, really—how are you? we don’t quite know what to do with it.

There is vulnerability in being asked a sincere question.

But there is vulnerability in answering one too.

Not everyone needs to know you

I think this becomes clearer with age.

Being known doesn’t mean becoming an open book.

It doesn’t mean sharing your most intimate thoughts with everyone who asks.

And it certainly doesn’t mean everyone deserves access to you.

There is wisdom in discernment.

Some people have earned the deeper story.

Some haven’t.

Some people know how to hold what we give them.

Others don’t.

Maybe one of the gifts of getting older is realizing that we don’t need to be understood by everyone.

What freedom there is in that.

I don’t need every room to get me.

I don’t need every person to agree with me.

I don’t need to explain myself into being accepted.

But I do think we need a few places where we can take off the armor.

A few people with whom we don’t have to translate ourselves.

What are we protecting?

This is the question I’ve been sitting with.

When I notice myself editing or pulling back, what am I protecting?

Sometimes it’s privacy.

Sometimes it’s intuition telling me this isn’t a safe place for something tender.

But sometimes it’s fear.

Fear of being misunderstood.

Fear of being too much.

Fear of saying something awkward.

Fear that the person sitting across from us might see us differently.

Fear that if we reveal what we actually think or want or feel, something between us might change.

And it might.

That’s the part we don’t like to talk about.

Authenticity doesn’t guarantee belonging.

Sometimes becoming more ourselves changes relationships.

But what is the alternative?

To belong somewhere only because we have become very good at being who the room expects us to be?

I’m not sure that’s belonging at all.

Maybe we have to stop reading the room

Or perhaps not stop.

Maybe we just stop allowing the room to decide who we are.

There is a difference.

Sensitivity is a beautiful thing.

To notice another person. To sense when someone needs space. To understand that not every thought needs to be spoken.

But sensitivity shouldn’t require self-erasure.

We can be thoughtful without disappearing.

We can be kind without constantly adjusting ourselves.

We can belong without performing.

And maybe this is part of coming home to ourselves too.

Learning to remain ourselves even when we’re in the presence of other people.

The people who keep discovering us

There is another piece of being known that I find beautiful.

We aren’t finished.

The person I am today isn’t exactly the person I was ten years ago.

Hopefully she isn’t.

We’re still changing.

Our desires change. Our priorities change. Our beliefs deepen. Things that once mattered tremendously become less important. Things we overlooked suddenly become precious.

Which means truly knowing someone isn’t something we accomplish.

It’s something we keep doing.

Maybe one of the greatest gifts we can give someone we love is refusing to assume we already know everything about them.

Ask your husband the question you’ve never asked.

Ask your longtime friend what she’s dreaming about now.

Ask your grown child who they’re becoming.

Let people surprise you.

And allow yourself to surprise them too.

Tell the truth to a few people

I don’t think the answer is to share more with everyone.

I think it’s to share more honestly with a few.

The people who have shown us they can listen.

The people who don’t immediately try to fix us.

The people who can disagree with us without withdrawing their love.

The people who are curious about who we are becoming rather than committed to who we used to be.

Those relationships deserve our courage too.

Because intimacy can’t survive forever on carefully edited versions of ourselves.

Eventually, someone has to say the real thing.

I’m scared.

I’m changing.

I don’t know.

I want something different.

That hurt me.

I’m happier than I’ve been in years.

I miss you.

I need you.

This is who I am now.

Perhaps that’s where true connection begins.

Not when someone finally asks the perfect question.

But in the moment we decide to give them an honest answer.

So maybe the question isn’t only:

How many people really know you?

Maybe it’s also:

How knowable have you allowed yourself to become?

Not to everyone.

Just to the few who have earned the privilege of knowing the person underneath all those carefully practiced versions.

Because being seen is one thing.

Allowing yourself to be seen is another.

And perhaps that is one of the quietest acts of courage there is.

 

-Natalie

When was the last time you felt truly listened to?

Not simply heard.

Not nodded at while someone waited for their turn to speak.

Not asked How are you? only to realize the expected answer was Good.

I mean listened to.

The kind of listening where someone stays with you. Where they ask another question because they actually want to understand. Where there is enough space between your words that you don’t feel the need to hurry.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.

We talk all day long.

We text. We comment. We send voice messages. We gather around tables. We run into one another in shops and on sidewalks. We ask about the kids, work, vacations, what we’re making for dinner.

And, of course, the weather.

We are constantly communicating.

But how often are we actually connecting?

The conversation underneath the conversation

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with small talk.

Sometimes How about this weather? is simply the doorway.

The problem is when we never walk through it.

There is usually another conversation waiting underneath the one we’re having.

How have you been?

Fine.

But what if we stayed there?

No, really. How have you been?

Suddenly the door opens a little wider.

Maybe they’re navigating something difficult. Maybe they’ve fallen in love. Maybe they’re questioning the direction of their life. Maybe they’re lonely. Maybe they’re happier than they’ve been in years.

We wouldn’t know unless we asked.

And then listened.

I wonder how many opportunities to know one another we miss simply because we move too quickly to the next thing.

Ask the second question

There is an art to asking questions.

Not interrogating. Not prying. Not asking because we need something interesting to say next.

Curiosity.

Someone tells you they just returned from a trip.

We can ask where they stayed.

Or we can ask, What did you love about being there?

Someone tells us their child has left home.

We can ask where they’re going to college.

Or perhaps, What has this season been like for you?

Someone says they’re changing careers.

Instead of What are you going to do?

Maybe it’s What made you realize you wanted something different?

The second question often tells us more than the first.

And then there’s the third question.

The one that comes because we were actually listening to the answer.

That’s when a conversation starts becoming something else.

Listening is not waiting

I think most of us believe we’re good listeners.

I’m not sure we always are.

So much of what we call listening is actually waiting.

Waiting for the opening to tell our story.

Waiting to offer advice.

Waiting to explain how the same thing happened to us.

Someone tells us about their mother and before they’ve finished, we’re talking about ours.

Someone tells us they’re struggling and immediately we begin trying to fix it.

Someone shares something vulnerable and we rush to reassure them because their discomfort makes us uncomfortable.

But sometimes the greatest gift we can give another person is to resist the urge to take their story away from them.

To simply say:

Tell me more.

And mean it.

Let there be a pause

This may be one of the things we’ve lost.

The pause.

We are so uncomfortable with empty space that we fill it immediately.

But I’ve noticed that some of the most meaningful things people say come after a pause.

The first answer is often the easy answer.

Then there is silence.

And if we don’t rush in to rescue the conversation, something else sometimes arrives.

Something more honest.

Maybe listening requires becoming comfortable with that space.

Not every silence needs to be filled.

Sometimes someone is simply finding the courage—or the words—to tell you what they actually mean.

Put down the need to perform

I also wonder how much of our shallow conversation comes from our own self-consciousness.

What should I say?

Am I interesting enough?

Do they like me?

What story should I tell?

How do I come across?

We’re standing in front of another human being while simultaneously having an entire conversation with ourselves.

It’s hard to truly see someone when we’re busy watching ourselves.

Maybe one of the quietest ways to become more connected is to stop trying so hard to be interesting.

Become interested instead.

What if we walked into a dinner thinking less about what we might contribute and more about what we might discover?

There are entire worlds sitting across from us.

We are all carrying something

By this age, everyone has lived some life.

There have been beginnings and endings.

Marriages. Divorces. Children. Losses. Reinventions. Illnesses. Careers. Regrets. Adventures. Things that didn’t work out. Things we never imagined would.

There are dreams people haven’t told anyone about.

There are things they are still making peace with.

There are versions of themselves they have outgrown.

There are questions they’re quietly asking about what comes next.

And yet we can sit beside someone for two hours and never get beyond what they ordered for dinner.

That’s fascinating to me.

Not because every conversation needs to become profound. That would be exhausting.

But because we have so many opportunities to know one another a little more deeply.

And most of the time, it doesn’t require some grand heart-to-heart.

It requires attention.

Perhaps this is how we make space for connection

Ask one more question.

Leave your phone in your bag.

Look at someone when they’re speaking.

Don’t immediately turn their story into yours.

Remember something they told you the last time you were together—and ask about it.

Allow silence.

Notice when someone’s answer doesn’t quite match their face.

Ask what they’re excited about instead of what they’re busy with.

Ask what they’re learning.

What they’re loving.

What they’re finding difficult.

What they want more of in their life.

And when they tell you—

stay.

Because perhaps the art of conversation isn’t really about knowing what to say.

Perhaps it’s about creating enough space for another person to say what they haven’t had the opportunity to say.

To know and be known

In my last Journal, I asked:

How many people really know you?

I’ve kept thinking about that question.

But maybe it deserves a companion.

How many people are you really trying to know?

Not their résumé.

Not their social media.

Not the collection of facts you’ve accumulated about them over the years.

Them.

I think we all want this more than we admit.

To have someone look beyond the easy answer.

To ask the next question.

To remember.

To be curious.

To listen without trying to fix or compare or hurry us along.

Maybe deeper connection isn’t something we find.

Maybe it’s something we practice.

One question.

One pause.

One conversation at a time.

Tell me more.

Perhaps three of the most generous words we can offer another human being.

 

-Natalie

I’ve been thinking about how many people we move through life with—and how few of them ever really know us.

We can share a meal with someone.

Sit beside them at a gathering.

Work together. Travel together. Raise children alongside one another. Exchange stories, laugh until our stomachs hurt, follow each other’s lives for years.

And still not really know one another.

There are different layers of connection, I suppose.

There are the people who know what we do. The people who know our families. The people who know the stories we tell easily. And then there are the very few who know what lives underneath all of that.

The things we’re afraid of.

What makes us come alive.

What we’re still trying to understand about ourselves.

The parts of our story that changed us.

What we believe.

What we long for.

Who we are when there is absolutely nothing to prove.

How many people actually know that person?

Maybe the more uncomfortable question is: How many people have we allowed to?

I am a sensitive, intuitive person. I notice things. I feel energy. I read the room. I hear what someone says, but I’m often just as aware of what isn’t being said.

Small talk can be difficult for me because I’m always searching for what’s underneath it.

Tell me what you love.

Tell me what you’ve learned.

Tell me about the thing that changed the direction of your life.

Tell me what you’re dreaming about now.

Tell me what you’re wrestling with.

I want to know you.

But there’s a contradiction in being wired this way.

When you’re sensitive to the people around you, you can become very good at adapting to them.

You read the room and adjust.

You become a slightly different version of yourself depending on where you are and who you’re with. Not necessarily because you’re pretending. Sometimes it’s simply easier. You find the part of yourself that fits the moment and lead with that.

And for a while, it works.

Until you realize that fitting in and being known are two very different things.

One creates belonging for the version of yourself you presented.

The other requires the courage to bring your whole self into the room.

That becomes interesting as we get older.

Because by this age, many of us have built very full lives.

We have families and marriages and businesses and routines. We have friendships that go back decades and people we see regularly. Our calendars can be full.

And yet we can still feel lonely.

Not necessarily lonely for people.

Lonely for depth.

For someone to ask the second question.

For someone to remember something you said months ago.

For a conversation that isn’t waiting for its turn to speak.

For someone who is genuinely curious about the person you have become—not simply familiar with the person you used to be.

Because truly knowing another human being requires something that feels increasingly scarce.

Time.

It requires investment.

Curiosity.

Questions.

Attention.

And listening.

Truly listening.

Not listening while preparing your response. Not listening while glancing at your phone. Not listening long enough to redirect the conversation back to yourself.

Listening long enough for someone to discover what they were trying to say.

That kind of attention is intimate.

And perhaps that’s why it feels so rare.

There are times when I think, I actually like my little world.

And I do.

I love my home. My husband. My work. My kitchen. My studio. My rituals. The familiar rhythms of the life we’ve created.

There is enormous comfort in your own world.

And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become far less interested in filling space simply for the sake of being social.

But sometimes I wonder if I like being alone can quietly become something else.

A protection.

Because solitude asks very little of us.

Connection does.

Connection requires vulnerability. It requires inconvenience sometimes. It requires showing up when we’d rather stay home. It requires asking another question. Making the invitation. Sitting through the awkward beginning of a conversation long enough to reach the meaningful part.

And perhaps hardest of all, it requires allowing ourselves to be seen too.

So is it worth investing in deeper connection at this stage of life?

I think it may be more important now than ever.

Not with everyone.

That may be one of the gifts of getting older—we finally understand that everyone doesn’t need access to us.

But a few people?

Yes.

A few relationships where we can put down the polished versions of ourselves.

A few tables where nobody needs to perform.

A few people who are curious enough to keep discovering us as we change.

And people we are willing to keep discovering too.

Maybe connection doesn’t require more people in our lives.

Maybe it requires more presence with the ones already sitting across from us.

Ask the question you normally wouldn’t ask.

Stay with the answer a little longer.

Put the phone away.

Tell the story underneath the story.

Let there be a pause without rushing to fill it.

And perhaps every once in a while, instead of asking someone, How are you?

ask something that gives them permission to tell you.

Because being surrounded by people and being known are not the same thing.

And somewhere underneath our independence, our full calendars, our comfortable homes and our carefully constructed little worlds, I think most of us still carry the same very human longing:

See me.
Know me.
And stay long enough for me to know you too.

 

 

- Natalie

The quiet gift of aging

There was a time when I thought growing older meant becoming less.

Less vibrant.
Less beautiful.
Less relevant.

But somewhere along the way, I discovered the opposite.

Aging, if we’re willing to embrace it, is really the journey of coming home to yourself.

Not the version of you the world expected.
Not the woman who spent years trying to earn her worth through achievement, perfection, or people-pleasing.

The real you.

The one who finally understands that peace is more valuable than proving something.

The older I become, the less interested I am in keeping up. I don’t need every trend, every product, every invitation. I no longer measure a good day by how much I accomplished.

Instead, I measure it by how present I was.

Did I notice the morning light?
Did I nourish my body?
Did I laugh with someone I love?
Did I make something with my hands?
Did I leave room to simply breathe?

There is an incredible freedom in realizing that you no longer have to become someone.

You simply get to be.

That freedom changes everything.

It changes how you care for your skin.

Instead of chasing youth, you begin caring for your skin as an act of gratitude. Every nourishing oil, every slow facial massage, every quiet moment in front of the mirror becomes less about fixing yourself and more about honoring the life you’ve lived.

It changes how you eat.

Food stops being about restriction and becomes about nourishment. You find yourself drawn to colorful vegetables, warm soups, beautiful olive oil, fresh herbs, and meals shared around a table—not because you should, but because they make you feel alive.

It changes how you spend your time.

You protect your peace a little more fiercely. You say no without guilt. You choose fewer things, but better things. You discover that your nervous system isn’t asking for more stimulation—it is asking for safety, beauty, creativity, nature, and rest.

Perhaps that’s the greatest gift of aging.

Wisdom.

Not the kind you find in books, but the kind that settles quietly into your bones after living enough life to know what truly matters.

I’ve learned that slowing down isn’t falling behind.

It’s arriving.

I’ve learned that beauty isn’t found in perfect skin. It’s found in kindness, laughter, curiosity, and the quiet confidence of someone who finally feels at home within herself.

I’ve learned that creativity isn’t about talent.

It’s medicine.

When we create—whether we’re tending a garden, preparing dinner, painting with friends, or arranging flowers—the noise gets quieter. Our nervous system softens. We remember that we were never meant to rush through life.

We were meant to notice it.

So if you’re finding yourself somewhere in the middle of life—or perhaps stepping into a new season—I hope you don’t fear what’s ahead.

I hope you welcome it.

Because coming home to yourself may be the most beautiful part of the journey.

Not despite your age.

Because of it.

Love + Be Well,
Natalie