In this episode of The Pause: Straight Up, we start with something truly enraging: two-factor authentication and the emotional damage caused by needing six passwords just to watch TV.

Then we get into the idea of “failure to thrive” in midlife. Not in a dramatic way, but in the quiet realization that your life didn’t turn out the way you once assumed it would. The house that never happened. The career that zigzagged. The dreams that are still hanging around, even when reality refuses to cooperate.

There’s also an Escape Plan to Marrakesh, featuring food, hammams, spices, and the fantasy of being scrubbed within an inch of your life and emerging calm and moisturized. And we wrap up with Things I Didn’t Actually Hate This Week, including a skincare product that is genuinely pulling its weight.

Funny, honest, and deeply relatable for anyone navigating perimenopause, aging, and the weird freedom of finally not giving a shit what anyone thinks.

Welcome to “Sh!t My Body Just Does Now,” the episode where I finally admit that my body has entered its feral middle-aged era and did not consult me first.

In this episode, I talk about all the weird, annoying, and frankly disrespectful things my body does now that I’m pushing 48. The stiff lower back that apparently woke up one day and chose violence. The doctor who shrugged and said, “Yeah… that’s aging.” The itchy inner ears no one warned us about. Hormone patches, rashes, Flonase being used for things it was absolutely not marketed for, and the deeply humbling experience of standing up after sitting too long and looking like I just moseyed off the trail.

We get into perimenopause BS, Pilates fantasies, and why yoga can fuck off. There’s also a little escapism because honestly, we need it. Italy makes an appearance. Aperol spritzes are discussed. As they should be.

This is not a wellness episode. There are no tips that will magically fix your joints. It’s just real midlife talk, dark humor, body betrayal, and the comfort of knowing you are absolutely not alone.

If you’re a woman over 40 dealing with perimenopause, aging, stiffness, exhaustion, and the general feeling that your body is running its own side quest, this one’s for you.

Listen, laugh, and feel extremely validated.

#MidlifePodcast #Perimenopause #AgingAsAWoman #WomenOver40 #MidlifeHumor #BodyChanges #GettingOlder #RealTalkPodcast #RelatableAF

Welcome to The Pause: Straight Up—a podcast for every woman who's ever stared into the void of her 40s (or 50s) and wondered “what the hell just happened?” In this very first episode, I finally hit record after too much overthinking and hoping my husband wouldn’t overhear me.

This intro is all about why I started the podcast, what I hope it becomes, and why I think it’s high time middle-aged women like us got to do a little more yapping. No advice. No toxic positivity. Just honesty, a bit of filth, and hopefully a few laughs. If you’ve ever felt like your eyelids have become crepe paper and your life plan took a hard left at midlife, you’re in the right place.

If your perimenopause symptoms are piling up faster than your savings, and you’re pretty sure everyone but you got a cheat code to life, welcome to The Pause: Straight Up.

Join host Shannon for raw, honest conversations about the messy, hilarious, and oh-so-relatable realities of midlife.

Hosted by a fellow perimenopause warrior, The Pause: Straight Up is a new podcast for women who are going through it. Our days can be a fight against brain fog and a mystifying number of new aches and pains, not to mention the strategic incompetence of our loved ones, and trying to embrace the life we've built, even if it's not the one we always dreamed of having. The Pause: Straight Up is a place we can all take a deep breath together.