"After marriage to a man for 14 years, I realized my love for my BFF"
+ Vaginal estriol cream for your face? • Midlife crisis or emergence?
BeWell | The Midst beauty, style & wellness newsletter
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My morning routine is all about hydration, hydration, hydration. And SPF.
Wake-up time: 6 a.m. if I’m lucky (if my Shih Tzu-Chihuahua doesn’t wake me.)
City: Phoenix, where it’s currently 115 degrees in July :(
First thought: I try to think about what I’m grateful for, but if I’m being honest, I tend to think, “What’s my schedule today? When’s my first meeting? Am I taking my daughter to school/camp, etc.?”
Between three glasses of water, half-caff coffee, morning meds, and showering, I didn’t realize how many products I use in the a.m. until I wrote them down. I won’t bore you with an exhaustive list — just some of my must-haves to rise and shine.
Oikos Triple Zero Vanilla Nonfat Greek Yogurt with no added sugar
I wish this stuff had healthy fat, but I love that there’s no added sugar or artificial sweeteners. The vanilla flavor disguises the bitter taste of kale in smoothies.
NNABI Peri Essential 5
I try not to eat until about 8:30 a.m. (so that I’ve fasted for 12 hours), which is hard sometimes but helps to manage my weight. A few minutes after eating a smoothie with Oikos, berries, kale, and carrots, I take two NNABI Peri Essential 5. In the morning, I do not take the CBD version. I tried that and it made me very sleepy, which is why it’s great for perimenopausal women who need help sleeping all night. The non-CBD version gives me more energy during the day.
OUAI Leave In Conditioner & Heat Protectant Spray
After conditioning my hair in the shower, I apply Ouai Leave In Conditioner. It smells so good and it adds just the right amount of moisture to tame my curls, which I let air-dry. Because I live in a dry climate (and maybe because I’m in perimenopause), if I don’t use a double dose of conditioner, my hair is usually flat and fly-away.
Vaginal estriol cream for your face?
Yep, it’s the latest thing in skincare. And according to a new study, it works.
Alloy contracted an independent expert dermatologist investigator to conduct a double-blind, three-arm, placebo-controlled study of the efficacy and safety of M4 Estriol Face Cream and estradiol with M4 cream base. The study was reviewed by an Institutional Review Board (IRB). After 12 weeks, with check-ins at baseline, 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and 12 weeks, the study showed statistically significant improvements in the following attributes, versus the cream base vehicle alone:
88% improvement in skin elasticity
70% improvement in hydration
57% improvement in skin texture
48% improvement in radiance
68% improvement in overall skin health
In addition to demonstrating effectiveness, the study confirmed the safety profile of M4. Results indicated no signs of inflammation or damage to the skin barrier, including issues like dryness, peeling, stinging, or itching, as well as no observed changes in serum estriol and estradiol levels. M4’s effects remain localized, without impacting the skin’s protective functions or elevating estrogen levels in the bloodstream.
Exclusive excerpt of Midlife Emergence: Free Your Inner Fire by Jen Berlingo, MA, LPC, ATR
“It was time to bring forth my lifelong desire to be in an intimate relationship with a woman.”
The magma of truth
The year I was forty-one years old, I sensed a shift in my being. It was as though a tectonic process had taken over my solid, internal landscape, moving the plates of my identity enough to expose peeks at my molten core. Much like a dormant volcano, from the outside my life appeared stable, peaceful, and lush, but a fiery magma brewed deep within, yearning to see the light of day. I had kept this inner fire bound, as I was terrified of its capacity to obliterate my entire village.
At the time, I lived what many would consider to be a pretty sweet life. I was several years into working in my private psychotherapy practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. I lived in a sprawling, California ranch home with one of those large, trendy swan rafts floating in our backyard pool. Our inflatable swan was named Juno, after the Greek goddess of marriage. I was nestled into this life alongside my loving, generous, devoted husband, Craig, to whom I’d been married for fourteen years, our vibrant ten-year-old child, and two chatty, snuggly cats. I’d swat away dissatisfaction whenever it crept into my psyche, berating myself for not feeling grateful enough for this exquisite life.
One spring day, while sitting salt-water-face to salt-water-face with Momma Ocean, listening to Ani DiFranco croon on my car stereo, I felt something hot start to crack my inner walls. For the past several months, I had become unbearably restless and inflamed, figuratively and literally, but I feared looking too deeply underneath because it might mean I would have to muster enough bravery to completely change my exquisitely beautiful life. In a prayer for courage, I breathed in the ocean air, trying to infuse my being with her powerful, feminine energy. I finally allowed silent sentences to escape the pit in my stomach and burn their way up through my heart and throat until I heard the words finally form in my mind. I whispered my secrets to the ocean because I knew she could hold them until I could set them all free. I confessed to her that it was time to bring forth my lifelong, unfulfilled desire to be in an intimate relationship with a woman. What was more difficult to (un)swallow was that the particular woman occupying my heart at the time was my best friend.
There was no turning away from the truth now. Seismic waves undulated in my belly that day at the ocean. Magma explodes when it comes into contact with seawater. For what might have been three minutes or three hours, I sat in silence, staring at the sea, bracing for what would happen when I spoke out loud what I knew I needed to speak. Tear-soaked, dirty haired, wild-eyed, and more awake than I had ever felt, I backed my car out of the parking lot and started down the winding road toward home.
Midlife crisis or emergence?
We begin the midlife period when we enter our forties. There, we find ourselves teetering between the first and second half of our lives. In 1950, psychologist Erik Erikson put forth his theory about the stages of psychosocial development. He says that beginning at age forty and lasting until our early sixties, we are presented with a conflict he calls “generativity versus stagnation.” This is a period in which we reevaluate our life’s purpose to be sure we are making the type of impact on the world that we would like. At this stage, the pull toward growth and generativity became so strong for me that I felt almost allergic to stagnation. For others, the steadiness stagnation offers may feel comfy and familiar. Many fall somewhere in between.
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