The Chapter You Keep Putting Off Is the One That Matters Most 📖

PLUS: the book your doctor should have given you years ago + what women's healthcare could look like

Estimated Reading Time: 3 - 4 minutes

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👋 Hello friends! Welcome to the May 12th edition of Menopaussible—bringing you the news you can use and the ⚡ energy ⚡ you need to support your menopause journey. I'm Maria Caracci Ciccolella—mindset coach and menopause advocate. (Connect with me on ​​IG​ or ​LinkedIn​!)

As I shared in an earlier edition of this newsletter, I've made a promise to myself to read more stories about and by women in 2026. One of those—Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder—stopped me in my tracks. Not because of what I already knew about Laura Ingalls Wilder, but because of what I didn't. She didn't become the author we all know until the age of 65. And she almost didn't become her at all.

Most of us have a chapter we keep circling. We know what it is. We just haven't started writing it yet. So what finally moves someone to pick up the pen?

Laura Ingalls Wilder: What Can Happen When You Raise Your Voice

For some of us, the first introduction to Laura Ingalls and her family—Pa, Caroline, Mary, and Carrie—may have come through the book series which began with Little House in the Big Woods. For others, the Michael Landon-directed TV series, Little House on the Prairie.

Both brought a nostalgic form of the frontier and pioneering to life—a life marked by open lands, good people, and the particular hardships faced by those who had ventured west. It was the idealized American dream: to put a stake in the land, build on it, and derive your "fortune" from it.

The books themselves were semi-true—based in the memories of Ingalls' childhood and experience, but largely shaped, edited, and in places rewritten by Laura's daughter, Rose—and Laura herself. The harsh realities of homestead life (poverty, illness, crop failure, near-ruin) were softened into something more charmed—an act of curation. And in doing so, Laura Ingalls Wilder found something: a version of her life she could build on.

A writer of note herself (and not always for the right reasons), Rose Wilder Lane's relationship with her mother was marked by a particular brand of tension: one steeped in competitiveness yet committed to nurturing her mother's emerging voice. It's a reminder that sometimes your greatest advocate can also be your most difficult relationship—especially when they can see the story you haven't quite identified for yourself yet.

What Laura ultimately produced, however, wasn't just a series of books that captured her memories (her initial and primary goal for writing them)—but what gave Laura a voice, an audience, a livelihood, and ultimately a legacy. The books may not have been the whole truth, but for her they established her truth—one that was imperfect, curated, and in some sense, forward-looking. It moved her life in ways that pure accuracy might never have done, turning a girl who grew up on the farm, and a woman who managed one, into a much more significant figure: author, businesswoman, and civic leader.

Are You Ready To Write A New Chapter?

Sixty-five. That was the age Laura Ingalls Wilder first published—hardly a time of life where we think about new beginnings. The lesson: the opportunity to expand your story or take it in a new direction is ever-present. The only question: are you ready to "pick up the pen?" Here are a few prompts to get you started:

Prompt 1:
The story of your life depends on you—which is why it is said that you create your life! Make it the film, book, or podcast series you'd return to over and over again. Write it in a line or two—in the present tense—as if you're already living it. Not where you are—where you're headed.

Prompt 2:
Who do you need to be? What traits do you need to embody to write that story? Not what you have—what you're becoming.

Prompt 3:
Sum up the next year in one exciting statement. Imagine it as a year-ending headline—the one for the story you want to read at the end of the year.

All The Paussibilities

The Little House books mythologized pioneering life: the frontier was far from welcoming; the American Dream was more often, nightmare. What Prairie Fires reminds us is that you can take your experiences and build from there. No one's story is perfect—even in the re-telling. You curate. You create. You just need to decide if you're ready to do it.

Rose saw what was possible in her mother before Laura fully did. That's what the right person in your corner can do—not rewrite your story, but help you see it clearly enough to own it. If this newsletter and the prompts above stirred something, that's not an accident. That's an invitation to start.

Hit reply and tell me—what's the story you're ready to start telling? And if you're ready to stop circling it and start building it, I'd love to hear the story you want to tell—book a free clarity consult here.

Speaking of re-writing the story…

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The Book Your Doctor Should Have Given You Years Ago

For decades, women have navigated the menopause transition with little more than a pamphlet and a dismissive "it's normal." ACOG—the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists—is working to change that. Released in January, Menopause: What Your OB-GYN Wants You to Know is a 280-page, evidence-based guide covering everything from perimenopause and hot flashes to hormone therapy, sexual health, mental health, and long-term wellness. Developed by an eight-member editorial board of leading Ob-Gyns and grounded in the latest clinical research, it's the kind of comprehensive, unbiased resource women have needed for a long time. Consider adding it to your reading list—or gifting it to someone who needs it. Available at acog.org and wherever books are sold.

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What Women's Healthcare Could Look Like

For too long, women navigating menopause have had to piece together their own care—a gynecologist here, a cardiologist there, a therapist somewhere else, with no one connecting the dots. New York's Mount Sinai is working to change that. Opening this month, the Carolyn Rowan Center for Women's Health and Wellness on Manhattan's Upper East Side brings together specialists across gynecology, cardiology, endocrinology, behavioral health, nutrition, and more under one roof—organized around the whole woman, not just her symptoms. At the heart of the model is a coordinated care pathway called MyPath, designed so that a woman managing menopause can also address her heart, metabolic, bone, and mental health without navigating a maze of referrals. "Women deserve care that reflects the full complexity of their lives and bodies," said Dr. Joanne Stone, Chair of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Mount Sinai. It's a New York City model—but one worth watching as a signal of where women's healthcare is headed.