#22 May!

celebrations + sadness + meltdowns + LIFE

“Your honesty is bravery personified and reading your words makes me feel braver too.” – Sarah-Jane, paid subscriber ❤️

👋🏼👋🏼👋🏼 Hiya! I’m Laura, bestselling author of 17 books and writer of one of Substack’s bestselling newsletters too. I believe you don’t change your life by becoming someone else - you change it by telling the truth about who you already are. How to Build a Life is where I do that, in real time, twice a week, to thousands of readers all over the world. Thank you for being here!!

coming June 11th!

I love doing these monthly reflections because they’re a chance to think and write about all the stuff that doesn’t make it into a “big” post. Every time I think ‘Oh! That would be good to write about for the newsletter!’ I jot it down in my notes app, and magically that sets in motion some sort of background brain function that means I start to write it in my head without really thinking about it, and these are mostly on a theme. At the end of every month I put the most fully-formed ideas onto a list so I know roughly what I’ll write about for the next month, making sure there is a mix of stuff to keep us all interested.

I used to keep these “big” posts under a paywall and this monthly round-up was free to read, but I realised recently the monthly reflections can often be even more intimate than everything else because they’re so unguarded. The truth of our lives can live in the margins, you know? I don’t know how to talk about the bits and bobs of my life any other way. So these monthly dispatches now live under a paywall alongside everything else, and instead my Joy Dump! series will be free to read, as a thank you to everyone who is here.

To be honest everything I send is a part of me, a part of my heart, and there’s no way to fully protect a heart, is there, not even with a paywall. A paywall helps keep my community small enough to be safe, to be kind, but ultimately it’s all vulnerable. Anyway. I’ve gone off-point. My point is, sitting down to write HOW TO BUILD A LIFE is always fun for me (genuinely!), and the look back on my month is particularly special because I always learn something about myself I didn’t know before I sat down.

Before we hit the paywall today: I want your turning 40 story! I posted about my own turning 40 revelation and an Instagram follower called Kit suggested profiling 40 women turning 40 this year, a way to share all the things we’ve all learned, changed into, and want other people to think about or know. A collective peek into how everyone else is doing it so that we can know we’re not alone, and also… likely everyone does it differently anyway. The relief! If you’ve recently turned, or are about to turn, 40, I’d love to feature you. Submit your 800 words here, (can be less!), and if you’re selected I will reach out for photos. I’m thinking I’ll splice up your story into a 20-photo carousel like I do for my own stuff. I reckon this will be fun! All are welcome!

And so, to the parties, funerals, gardens, walks, sleepovers and festival days that made up my May…