The minute I got off the plane, my blood pressure went down.
I could feel it in my body—the way my shoulders dropped, the way my breath deepened, the way that familiar ache settled low in my stomach. The excited, nervous feeling you get when you're about to see a lover you haven't touched in years.
New Orleans. My second city.
I hadn't been back since I was pregnant. Eight years ago. A lifetime ago. And now I was here for Jamie's 50th birthday—her first time experiencing the city that raised me into my second act.
* * *
I started living in New Orleans 15 years ago, after my 10-year relationship ended in a fireball.
I didn't move there. I fled there at the invitation of my live-out-loud-friend, Leslie.
For months at a time, I'd leave everything behind and land in this city that didn't ask questions. Didn't need explanations. Didn't care who I used to be or what I'd lost or whether I had my shit together. (Unlike NYC where they say that anything goes, while they judge you.)
New Orleans just let me be.
It taught me how to rebuild. How to sit with grief and rage and not know what comes next. How to dance anyway. How to eat anyway. How to live anyway.
It was the beginning of my midlife rebirth. The place where I learned that falling apart isn't the end—it's the opening.
* * *
New Orleans is a city that knows who the fuck it is.
It acknowledges its history—all of it. The art, the culture, the music, the food. The segregation, the oppression, the white supremacy. The political cronyism, the corruption. The natural and man-made disasters that keep trying to take it down.
Hurricane Katrina was 20 years ago, and the wounds are still present.
Over 100,000 people never returned after the storm and flood. They had nothing to return to. Banks were sending foreclosure notices to addresses of homes that no longer existed. The mostly Black working-class Lower 9th Ward is still not entirely rebuilt—despite the efforts of compassionate yet under-resourced nonprofits, and because of the financial greed of real estate developers who saw disaster as opportunity.
The city lost entire neighborhoods. Entire communities. Entire ways of life.
And yet.
And yet.
New Orleans rises.
Like me, it's in its own next act. And it expresses that through street art and music in the most hidden spaces. And who makes the best roux and rabbit jambalaya. And who shucks oysters the fastest. Through how people dress—tutus, wigs, and glitter abound. Through second lines and jazz funerals and Mardi Gras Indians. Through crawfish boils and corner bars and front porch hangs.
New Orleans’ resilience doesn't perform for anyone. It just is.
* * *
On my first night back, there were 12 of us—friends from New York and New Jersey who've known each other for 25 years. We started at Bar Redux, this dive-y spot in the Marigny where the wine menu is either red or white. End of story.
We drank cheap wine and laughed too loud and reminded each other of who we used to be—and still are, just an older, wiser version.
And then we moved to the back garden at Bacchanal in the Bywater, where we drank good wine and listened to live jazz under string lights, huddled under heat lamps laughing until we couldn’t breathe. So much laughter, always.
Jamie—whose 50th we were celebrating—had never been to New Orleans before. Watching her experience it for the first time felt like watching someone fall in love. That wide-eyed wonder. That immediate yes to everything.
And I realized: I was falling in love too. All over again.
With the city. With myself. With the wild, free, romantic version of me that New Orleans has always known.
* * *
Here's what New Orleans reminded me:
I am resilient.
Not because I haven't fallen apart. But because I have. More than once.
I've lost people I thought I couldn't survive losing. I've ended relationships that nearly ended me. I've had health breakdowns that put me on disability for two years. I've rebuilt my body, my mind, my spirit from the ground up.
And I'm still here. Still dancing. Still creating. Still loving. Still free.
Not just surviving. Living.
New Orleans taught me that it isn't about bouncing back. It's about rising differently. It's about letting the breaking open become the transformation.
It's about knowing who the fuck you are—your history, your scars, your beauty, your power—and living that out loud.
* * *
Visiting again reminded me of my unshakeable foundation:
Love. Freedom. Joy. Creativity.
Those aren't luxuries. They're not things I get to access once I've healed enough, once I've figured it out, once I'm "ready."
They're the foundation. The bedrock. The truth underneath everything else. Where I build my life FROM.
And when I forget—when life gets hard or scary or overwhelming—I can always come back to them.
Just like I came back to New Orleans.
* * *
There's something about returning to a place that knew you before.
Before the breakdowns. Before the rebuilding. Before you became whoever you're becoming now.
New Orleans knew me when I was a mess. When I was grieving. When I was wild and reckless and trying to figure out how to live in a body that had been through too much.
And it didn't try to fix me.
It just held space. It let me be messy. It let me figure it out. It let me dance and eat and cry and laugh and slowly, slowly remember who I was underneath all the performance.
Returning to that place now—20 years later, in my own next act—felt like the city was saying: I see you. I know you. You're still you.
And that's what I needed to hear.
* * *
This is what I know about midlife:
We need places—physical or spiritual—that remind us who the fuck we are.
We need to return to ourselves the way I returned to New Orleans. With that nervous, excited feeling. With that familiar ache. With that recognition: Oh. There you are. I've missed you.
We need to remember our unshakeable foundation. The things that are true even when everything else falls apart.
We need to see our own resilience reflected back to us. Not the sanitized, Instagram version. The real kind. The kind that survives disasters and still knows how to dance.
* * *
If you're in midlife and you're feeling lost—if you're wondering who you are underneath all the roles and expectations and performance—I want you to ask yourself:
Where is your New Orleans?
What place, what person, what part of yourself reminds you who the fuck you are?
Where do you go to remember your unshakeable foundation?
What would it look like to return there? To let yourself be held by something that knew you before? To stop performing and just be?
You don't have to have it all figured out.
You don't have to be healed or whole or ready.
You just have to come home to yourself.
The way I came home to New Orleans.
The way New Orleans came home to me.
* * *
If This Sounds Like You:
Maybe you're lying awake at 3am wondering how you got here. Maybe your body is staging a rebellion—chronic pain, insomnia, anxiety that won't shut up. Maybe you've built a life that looks good on paper but feels like it's suffocating you. Maybe you want to make a change but you don't know where to start.
You're not broken. You're waking up.
And you don't have to do this alone.
* * *
What Working Together Looks Like
My coaching programs—Pathway to Purpose (90 days) and Purpose into Practice (180 days)—help midlife women stop performing and start living.
We start with your heart: uncovering your Values, clarifying your Vision, naming your Mission. Not what you think you should want—but what YOU want.
Then we move to your head: taking new Actions, gathering the Resources, celebrating the Wins, learning from the Lessons, and making the difference in your communities.
Not by fixing you. But by helping you remember who you've been all along.
* * *
Ready to Come Home to Yourself?
I offer a free 30-minute discovery call where we'll talk about where you are, where you want to go, and whether my coaching is the right fit for you.
No pressure. No sales pitch. Just two women talking about what it means to build a life that's actually yours.
Book your free discovery call here →
You don't have to have it all figured out.
You just have to take the first step.
I'm here when you're ready.
