April Coffee Date

Kangaroos, Strawberries, and Glimmers

Sunday, April 27, 2025

Happy Sunday friends, it’s been a minute since I shared some words with you here at Midlife Rewrite. I apologize for that. The people-pleaser in me feels a little guilty, but if I’m being honest, my heart and soul are full. In this season of midlife reinvention, I've learned that sometimes you have to live the story before you can write it—and that’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

An old friend of mine came into town for a two-week visit and truthfully, I misjudged how much time I’d have to write with all the catching up we needed to accomplish. Louise—that’s the name we decided I’d call her—makes this long journey across the International Date Line every year—well, not the Covid years, of course—but you get my drift. Australia is not quite next door to Chapel Hill, North Carolina—it’s a trek!

Louise and I first met over a decade ago in the comments section of my old blog, bonding over our mutual love of romance novels and our shared quest to find the most salacious, laugh-out-loud passages to read aloud while keeping a straight face. Oh, those were some good times! Halcyon days, indeed. She finally touched down back home late Friday afternoon East Coast time—Saturday, if you're Down Under.

All is not lost, my visit with Louise rattled loose some fun topics I want to write about and I have a notebook full of fresh ideas and thoughts I want to share with you. Stay tuned for that! But first let’s dive into a recap of April! Grab your drink of choice on this beautiful Sunday morning. Spring has sprung in these parts so I’m making the switch to iced coffee on my front porch. My current favorite is an Iced Dirty Chai but I’m adding a Lavendar Latte to the mix real soon. I like to listen to jazz music on Sundays and I tend to stay in my pajamas too long but that’s what Sundays are for, don’t you think?

Brave New You Challenge

April was packed with Brave New You moments—those small, important steps that add up to big personal growth after divorce and midlife changes.

For starters, I didn’t beat myself up or ruminate in a puddle of guilt for not writing one single word while my friend was in town. That’s a biggie for me; I didn’t even crack open my journal to pour into my Morning Pages. I closed my laptop, put my journals away, cut my phone’s screen time by 75%, laughed, cried, ate well, drank a little too much wine, and slept like a teenager.

Sidenote: why is the saying, slept like a baby? Babies sleep for shit, teenagers are the real sleepers, no? I vote we change that saying right here, right now! Be the change you want to see!

Louise and I took on a pretty fun project that also belongs on the Brave New You list. We made a garden on my back patio. We bought the materials, built a really cute, raised bed and filled it with tomato plants, several different types of peppers, and some cucumbers. We couldn’t leave the front porch unadorned, so we gathered some pots and planted an herb garden to grace my front steps. And strawberries, I can’t forget the strawberry plants, too!

April wasn’t done surprising us yet. During Louise’s fortnight visit, our Canadian friend Lolo braved the newly treacherous terrain of the US/Canadian border and helped me pull off an epic surprise! Louise and I had tickets to see Little Shop of Horrors at PlayMakers, our local university theater. Unbeknownst to Louise, Lolo had a ticket, too! The look on Louise’s face when Lolo emerged from an Uber while we were enjoying our morning coffee and tea on my front porch was priceless! More laughs, more tears, more good food, more wine, more good times—I’m telling you, my heart is full.

Did you do anything in the month of April that counts towards the Brave New You Challenge? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Glimmers vs. Triggers

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know what a “trigger” is. It seems like practically anything and everything can be classified as a trigger for someone. A trigger is defined as an intense emotional response to something or someone that caused trauma in your past. This can be any array of person, place, thing, sound, smell, or feeling. Some people are aware of their triggers and know to avoid them while others discover new triggers on the fly. We even have trigger warnings in different types of media, especially the more visual varieties like books and tv/movies.

I consider myself lucky; I don’t have any triggers, or I guess I haven’t discovered anything that’s terribly triggering for me as of yet. I still have a lot of life left to live and plenty of first dates so who knows what I may uncover as the years plod on by. Yes, there are types of media I don’t like to consume but that’s a preference, not an actual emotionally debilitating response. Having said that, Nickelback’s entire discography and the movie The Last Action Hero both elicit deep emotional responses, and by “emotional responses” I mean loathing and hatred. I’ve also learned I can’t date any man who shares the same first name as Ex. Again, loathing, hatred and overall ick which is a pity because his name is incredibly common in all eras but especially Gen X.

Recently I’ve discovered a new term making its way around social media: Glimmers. A quick Google search defines glimmers in a very succinct way: In mental health, glimmers are small, positive moments that help regulate the nervous system and promote feelings of calm, connection, and safety. They are the opposite of triggers. Glimmers are often described as micro-moments of joy or appreciation that can shift your mood and help you feel grounded. Now, that’s a feel-good moment we can all strive to encounter in the current shitstorm that is our world right about now.

In an effort to wash my life in more natural, organic positivity, I’ve started to actively look for glimmers in my day to day. I try to slow down, become more mindful of my surroundings and really take in any glimmers that cross my path. I’ve even started a Note on my phone to log the especially beautiful and poignant ones I come across. There’s so much bad, scary, and negative all around us, looking for and acknowledging the occasional glimmer feels good in an anti-toxic positivity sort of way. It certainly can’t hurt. I suppose it’s safe to say cataloging my glimmer encounters on my Notes app could be construed as another win on my Brave New You Challenge—if you’re keeping score!

I had several glimmers of note during April but one in particular is photo worthy, so I thought I’d share it with you.

My first strawberry!

Behold my first burgeoning strawberry fruit! It caught me off guard when I went out to check on my crops the other morning and made me unleash an unexpected giggle of glee. A little celebratory dance may have happened for my neighbors to see, too! My nervous system was regulated straight into unabashed joy territory. And yes, I realize it’s a small, raised bed and some pots but don’t poo-poo on my fun, let this urban-ish farmer girl live her dreams and refer to her fruit/veg/herb plantings as crops!

Writing Prompt Time

I’m going to keep providing these writing prompts until at least two of you play along. It’s not lost on me that I poured my soul out to you with the last one—When She Opened The Door, She Wished and nary a single soul chimed in with their own attempt to craft a measly paragraph. That’s okay, my feelings aren’t hurt. I wrote my ass off with that prompt and I’m incredibly proud of it.

I returned to my new favorite website: The Most Dangerous Random Prompt Generator to find a new one for us to ponder in May. It’s a doozy and I’m going to have a good time figuring out what to do with it in the coming weeks. Give it a shot if you dare!

May’s Dangerous & Random Writing Prompt is: She decided to go to her father’s grave, to ask his advice…

What I watched in April

Photo Credit: Netflix and HBO Max

The Pitt

Set in a gritty Pittsburgh public hospital, The Pitt follows the lives of healthcare professionals in the Emergency Department as they manage personal crises, workplace politics and a nonstop flow of patients over the course of a day. Yes, beloved ER star Noah Wyle is back in scrubs calling out complicated orders in a high stress environment once again, and he’s crushing it! The cool twist is each of the 15 episodes covers the goings on in the ER for one hour of the day shift crew. A fresh batch of newbie interns and residents are thrown into the fire on day one. It’s a white-knuckle ride for sure.

The cast if filled with a nice mix of new, new to me, and familiar faces. And as necessary for any procedural drama worth its salt, the secondary cast of patients and caregivers give some of the most outstanding and heartfelt performances I’ve ever seen. Noah Wyle’s Dr. “Robby” Robinavitch leads the cast and even wrote a couple of the episodes. My favorite character might be Taylor Deardon’s Dr. Mel King. That woman is a national treasure, we should place her in bubble wrap and protect her, and her beautiful spirit at all costs. Another favorite would have to be Katherine LaNasa’s Dana. She’s the Charge Nurse and keeps the ER humming along apace. Fun fact: Katherine LaNasa is married to heart throb of my younger days, Grant Show of Ryan’s Hope and Melrose Place fame. Her list of ex-husbands also includes French Stewart and Dennis Hopper. You know that woman has stories!

How much do I love this show? At the time of this writing, I have watched Season One of The Pitt on HBO Max THREE times. Once solo, once with Girlie, and once with Louise—hit me up if you need a watch partner, I’ll do it again without a moment’s hesitation.

Ransom Canyon

At Girlie’s not so subtle suggestion I watched Netflix’s latest family saga, Ransom Canyon. I was hesitant to tune in because the synopsis is giving early 90s Lifetime Movie and Hallmark Channel have a baby vibes but Girlie knew the two magic words to sway me. Josh Duhamel. That man is a tall, tall, tall drink of very pretty water and he has aged gloriously well. Look, we’re going to overlook the small fact that his new wife IRL is 21 years his junior—I just like to look at the man. There’s plenty of eye candy scattered about this show in varying age ranges. IMDB describes Ransom Canyon as: A romance-fueled family drama and contemporary western saga that charts the intersecting lives and loves of three ranching families set against the sweeping tundras and rolling rivers of Texas hill country. Everybody is weirdly related on some level by blood or by marriage and everybody is fucking. You have the midlife folks like Duhamel’s Staten Kirkland and Minka Kelly’s Quinn O’Grady dealing with the town elders while also dipping into their kids and nephews high school antics and drama. There’s a little something for everyone in this multi-generational saga that builds steam around a water and power company trying to buy up ranches for their pipeline. It’s set in Texas so there’s football, cheerleading, bull riding, line dancing, love triangles and of course, a killer tornado. If you’re a Josh Duhamel fan give it a whirl. I’m not saying you should watch it but I’m also not not saying that. I personally have no regrets and I’m hoping we get a Season Two.

ICYMI links from April

In case you missed it when I originally posted When She Opened the Door, She Wished, I’ve removed the paywall for the remainder of April.

Thanks for hanging out and catching up with me today. I hope your April was full of beauty. I’d love to hear all about it in the comments. Here’s to May! Make sure you soak up the goodness all around you. Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to look for the glimmers, they’re guaranteed to brighten your day.

Wishing you more glimmers, more giggles, and plenty of porch coffee until we meet again.

Hugs & Smooches!

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P.S. If you relate to anything in this Coffee Date—midlife friendships, fresh starts, porch coffees—let’s chat in the comments. Your stories always make my day.