Hi Reader,

Last Christmas I got COVID, which meant that by the time I recovered, I jumped from ‘holiday chaos’ into New Year’s Day like I’d missed the entire week in the middle. ‘Cause I kind of did.

So on New Year’s Day, when my extremely sociable, extremely kind husband suggested we head to a friend’s party to kick 2025 off with some friends, something unexpected came out of my mouth.

Normally, I’d hem. I'd haw. Offer a gentle excuse that sort of kept things moving along. But this time?
I just said: “No.”

He kind of looked at me funny, and I knew he was disappointed. He asked me why, and again, no hemming, no hawing. I didn’t even buffer it with an apology. I didn’t do that thing women do where we wrap honestly in bubble wrap so it’s got softer edges. I simply said, “I just really don’t want to.”

I said it so certainly, like I was notgoinghardstop, that my sweet husband looked at me, tilted his head, and said I actually sounded a little bit selfish. And normally, this would have given me some pause. I mean, I like the guy. But instead, I just said it again:

“I might. But I’m still not going.”

And here’s the part I want to underline:
Ed wasn’t being a jerk. He genuinely wanted to start the year with me. He was sweet about it.

But something in me had shifted.

The agreeable, likable wife, the one who maybe would have wrestled with some guilt about this in the past, simply was not available. I was just…telling the truth.

And that’s exactly the undercurrent I felt during my conversation with Pamela Redmond—novelist, Nameberry creator, author of Younger (the book that inspired the seven season series), and now the mind behind Old Woman Naked, her one-woman show about aging, embodiment, and claiming the female body as your own.

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At 72, Pamela walked onstage, told the story of her life, and ended the show…naked.

Because, as she told me:

“How could I tell the story of my body without taking off my clothes?”

And the thing is that the naked body was hardly the least vulnerable thing happening on that stage. Instead, it was the backdrop to a powerful story of a life lived in a woman’s body.

Pamela told me she once imagined aging as a slow fade into invisibility—the kind women are taught to dread. And that fear is reinforced everywhere: from fashion magazines to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Pamela searched for depictions of older naked women and found…six. In a museum of thousands.

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But what she’s discovered—and what she’s living—is this:

Invisibility can become liberation.

When you’re no longer measuring yourself against a 22-year-old ideal…
When your worth isn’t tied to youth or “hotness”…
When you fully step outside the male gaze…

You get to define yourself on your own terms.

And what’s out there isn’t decline.

It’s spaciousness.​
​Joy.​
​Reinvention.

Pamela wrote her first novel at 50.
She launched her Substack at 70.
She performed onstage for the first time—naked or otherwise—at 72.

She writes on her Substack Jubilarian about this phase of life—one where joy becomes urgent, time feels precious, and the body you live in becomes something to claim rather than critique.

And listening to her, I realized that hers wasn’t just a story about aging, but about power. We think it peaks in our 20s, or our 30s, or our 40s. And then pffft! It fizzles out and we’re invisible.

The secret she’s learned, that women are learning every day, is that power expands—with every reinvention, every discomfort, every time we refuse to shrink.

As Pamela put it:
​“You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.”

Maybe the most radical thing a woman can do right now is refuse the smallness she’s been taught to accept. Refuse invisibility, or shame, or the myth that she’s past her prime. Because after talking to Pamela, I feel more excited about the potential of my own future than I’ve felt in a long time.

So if you need a dose of courage, perspective, or quiet permission to step into the next version of yourself, this conversation might be the spark.

🎧 Watch/listen to my conversation with Pamela Redmond on YouTUBE here,
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or on Spotify here.

And, If you’re not already following Pamela’s Substack, you should be. It’s everything you’d want from her—funny, brave, wise, and real.
​→ Start with her latest post here.​

XO,
Danielle

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