The malaise is real
(And no one’s talking about it)
By Sheri Radel
It’s 2 pm on a Tuesday, and I’m doing that thing again. The thing where I refresh my email for the fifth time in an hour, hoping something — anything — will materialize. A response. An assignment. A “we’d love to work with you.”
Nothing. I will caveat and say that I currently have a steady client and just finished a really fun two-week sprint across four brands, but that doesn’t mean I can coast — far from it.
I check LinkedIn, scroll Instagram, and make another coffee I won’t feel like drinking. I wonder if it’s bad to watch The Diplomat during working hours. Then I pat myself on the back for wearing pants with a zipper while debating how much Diet Coke is too much.
This is the malaise. And if you’re a midlife woman, particularly one who works in the creative space, you know exactly what I’m talking about even if we’re not saying it out loud.
The pattern you start to notice
You know what’s wild? Once you start paying attention, you see it everywhere.
The former magazine editor who now does “consulting” (read: nothing). The brand strategist with 20 years of experience who can’t get a callback. The creative director who built entire campaigns now ghosted after the third interview. The writer, the designer, the producer — all of them accomplished, all of them credentialed, all of them ... unemployed.
We’re talking about women who know what they’re doing. Who have awards, portfolios, and references. Who spent decades building expertise that suddenly feels worthless in a market that wants cheaper, younger, faster, AI-generated, good enough.
And here’s what nobody’s saying out loud: there are SO MANY of us.
It’s not just me having a slow year. It’s not just your friend who’s “between things.” It’s a whole generation of midlife women who are professionally accomplished and economically adrift, and we’re all looking around at each other like... What the actual fuck is happening?
The portfolio that beat me
Last fall, I was up for a freelance role with a well-known retailer — a good one. I was excited, prepared, and sent samples that I thought were warm, funny, and human — the kind of writing that makes people feel something.
I didn’t get the job.
Worse? I got to see the portfolio of the person who did. Minimalist. All lowercase. No sparkle. A grayscale palette, aesthetically and emotionally. Like Koyaanisqatsi revisited, this time in Bushwick.
And here I am — still sparkle-forward. Still writing with a wink and still believing in warmth, texture, wit. Still crazy after all these years.
Add to that the unspoken piece: my age. Nobody says it, but you feel it in every “thanks, but no thanks.” You feel it in the job descriptions that use words like “digital native” and “fresh perspective.” Code for: We want someone younger, someone cheaper, someone who doesn’t remember a time before Teams.
It’s not just me (it’s all of us)
Here’s the thing: this isn’t a personal failure. This is a collective moment. And it’s not just about jobs — though that’s a big, scary part.
It’s also about watching Trump demolish the White House’s east wing, and instead of feeling shocked, feeling… nothing. Or worse, feeling like this is just how things are now. Everything is being demolished — institutions, norms, the pretense that any of this makes sense — and we’ve somehow normalized the abnormal. The outrageous has become run-of-the-mill, and that itself is frightening.
It’s about AI churning out blog posts, ad copy, and “creative content” at lightning speed. All of it is fine, none of it great, but who cares because it’s free, fast, and good enough. We spent decades honing our craft, learning to write with voice and nuance, and now we’re competing with robots that don’t need health insurance.
It’s about being peak-talented and peak-dismissed at the exact same time.
It’s about the loneliness architecture of modern work — the freedom of freelancing that’s also its isolation. There are no office friends, no watercooler moments, and no casual community. It’s just you, your kitchen table, and a Slack channel that pings at 9 pm because nobody respects boundaries anymore. Do we even want to work anymore?
It used to be more fun.
It’s about scrolling the news and feeling this low-grade dread that never quite lifts: the political chaos, the climate anxiety, the sense that the world is both ending and somehow really boring at the same time.
It’s about being Gen X in 2025, a generation that was promised nothing and expected nothing, but still somehow didn’t see this coming.
It’s about being Gen X in 2025, a generation that was promised nothing and expected nothing, but still somehow didn’t see this coming.
The silence is deafening
And here’s what makes it worse: nobody’s really talking about it.
We’re supposed to be grateful. We have careers (sort of). We have lives (mostly). We’re not 25 and starting from scratch. Complaining feels ungracious. Admitting struggle feels like failure.
Meanwhile, Instagram is full of women our age performing wellness and reinvention. Morning routines. Gratitude journals. Collagen creamer. The toxic positivity of “next chapter” narratives, as if every midlife woman is supposed to be thrilled about pivoting to life coaching or ceramics or whatever the algorithm tells us is empowering this week.
The disconnect between how things look (clean-girl aesthetic, optimized routines, mindful consumption) and how things feel (heavy, stuck, scary, sad) is massive.
The shame of not thriving is real. The pressure to have figured it out by now is real. And the silence around the fact that so many of us are just… not okay? That’s real, too.
What it costs us
This isn’t just about money, though, honestly, that’s terrifying. It’s about what happens when you spend your days feeling untethered. When you question your worth because the market has decided you’re no longer valuable. When you’re talented and experienced and somehow invisible all at once.
It costs us our confidence. Our sense of purpose. The easy answer to “what do you do?” at parties.
It costs us the creative spark, because it’s hard to make art when you’re panicking about health insurance.
It costs us community, because isolation breeds more isolation, and it’s hard to admit you’re struggling when everyone else seems fine.
It costs us joy. And that one hurts the most.
Small acts of resistance
So what do we do? I don’t have all the answers. I’m not going to sell you a course or tell you to manifest harder or suggest you simply choose abundance.
But here’s what I’m trying:
I keep showing up here. My Substack is growing. Every week, new readers arrive. You stay. You write back. You feel what I’m saying. This space — this connection — feels rare and beautiful and entirely mine.
I savor the small stuff. If I’m not going to bed with a big win, at least I walked to get coffee like I’m in a French indie film. Small rituals matter. They make you feel like you’re still starring in your own story, even if the script needs rewrites.
I talk to my people — the brunch table, the group text, the friends who get it. Connection is everything. The malaise wants isolation, but I refuse.
I do one thing a day that builds the future I want. It doesn’t have to be big. I could update a bio, send a pitch, post a newsletter, or do something forward-facing.
I mute, unfollow, and log off. Not forever. Just enough to breathe.
And here’s the optimistic truth I’m holding onto: when everything is being demolished, something new has to rise. You can’t destroy the east wing without eventually rebuilding. You can’t dismantle systems without creating space for something else. Thus, the image at the top of this post.
I don’t know what that something else looks like yet. But I know it’s coming. And I know women like us — sparkly, stubborn, still here — will be part of building it.
We’re still here
Here’s what I know: so many of us are out here — wise, accomplished, talented women — still showing up, getting dressed, and making the coffee. We still believe our work matters, even when the market says otherwise.
We didn’t disappear just because we hit 50. We didn’t lose our edge. We didn’t suddenly forget how to do what we’re good at.
We’re living through a moment nobody warned us about, and we’re doing our best to keep the lights on.
Because here’s the thing about malaise: it’s heavy, but it’s not final. It’s the feeling before the shift. The demolition before the rebuild. The 2 pm Tuesday before something finally clicks into place.
I don’t know when that moment is coming. But I’m still here. Still sparkling, even when the world wants us matte. I still believe that what comes after the demolition might actually be better than what was there before.
If you’re feeling this too, you’re not alone. And you’re not failing. You’re just refusing to disappear.
And maybe that’s the whole point. We keep showing up. We keep the sparkle. We wait for the rebuild.
Because it’s coming, it has to be. We still have so much to do.
This essay was originally published here.
Sheri Radel Rosenberg is a Philly-born, Brooklyn-based writer who explores style, beauty, culture, and midlife with wit, warmth, and wisdom. Her story includes successful forays into the worlds of trend forecasting, ad agency photo production, ghostwriting, and strategic messaging development for fashion and beauty brands — all while amassing a slip dress collection that would make any Gen Xer proud.
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🙋♀️ Feeling like I should send this to the very kind but clueless financial manager who asked me the other day, "have you tried looking for work online? Are there any online jobs you could do?"
Thanks for this! We are talking about it - every convo with my creative friends.