Dear Mel Robbins: You Wrote a Book That Felt Like It Was Written for Me, So I Wrote You Back.

Dear Mel,

You probably get a lot of letters. I figured I’d add mine to the pile, because you wrote a book that felt like it was written specifically for me, so it only felt right to write you back.

Let me introduce myself. I’m Lynn. I’m a wife of 25 years, mom of two grown sons, and somewhere in the middle of what felt like the hardest stretch of my life, I became a blogger. That last part still makes me smile a little, because a few years ago I would have laughed at the idea and then immediately wondered what everyone would think about it.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

It started with loss, the way so many next chapters do. I lost my mom, and on the day of her funeral I broke my foot. I didn’t stop to deal with it because I came home to my dog Molly, who had been declining while I was away, and she needed me more than my foot did. Three weeks later, Molly was gone too.

I moved through all of it the way women like us tend to do, by pushing forward, holding it together, taking care of what needed to be taken care of, and ignoring the broken things, including the one at the end of my leg.

Eventually my foot demanded attention and I had surgery. Then came the recovery, which meant slow walks around my neighborhood horseshoe loop, the same path I used to take with Molly every single day. The same path where I would have quiet conversations in my head with my Dad, who had passed before all of this. That loop holds a lot for me, Mel. It still does.

Walking it without Molly was hard in a way that is difficult to explain. So I put my earbuds in and I started listening to your book, The Let Them Theory.

I want you to know that I was not someone who easily lets things go. I had spent the better part of my life as a people pleaser, a worrier, someone who would talk herself out of her own ideas before they ever even had a chance. I had this quiet pull toward something more, something of my own, but the fear of judgment had a way of sitting right on top of it and keeping it hidden away.

Then you said it. “Let them.” Let them think what they want, say what they want, judge if they need to. And then, the part that changed everything for me – “let YOU.” Let you want what you want. Let you try what you want to try. Let you build what you feel called to build without waiting for anyone’s approval first.

I was walking through the path in the woods on my healing foot, on the loop where I used to walk my dog and talk to my Dad, and something in me just changed. It was like a switch flipped from off to on. I thought, fine. Let them. Let me.

So I started a blog.

I called it Next Chapter Living with Lynn, because that is exactly what it is.

It is written for women in the middle of midlife who are navigating the transitions that do not always have a clear name. The empty nest that hits harder than you expected. The loss that changes the shape of everything. The quiet restlessness that tells you there is something more out there, even when life looks fine from the outside. The aging parents, the grown children finding their wings, the moments where you look up and think, okay, now what is this next part supposed to look like? I write for the woman who is in that space, because I have lived in it, and I want her to know that someone else is walking through it too. Not perfectly at all and not without hard days, but forward. Always trying to move forward.

It came from the grief, the searching, the long quiet walks and the realization that somewhere inside all of that hard, there was something I was supposed to do. I wanted to build something of my own. Something that could grow into real success, personally and financially. Something that would show my sons that you can take what you love, bet on yourself, and build a life around it without spending the whole time worrying what the world thinks.

It has not been without its hard days. There have been moments of doubt and restarts and learning curves that made my head spin. But I run to my laptop every chance I get, Mel, because this is mine and I love it, and I think that is what you were talking about all along.

So thank you. Thank you for writing a book that somehow knew exactly which woman needed it most on a Tuesday morning walk through the woods.

I hope one day to tell you in person that it worked.

With so much gratitude,

Lynn

nextchapterlivingwithlynn.com