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For the part that comes after surviving. What this is, who it's for, and where to begin.
If you’ve just arrived, this is the quickest way in.
La Forêt Intérieure is a weekly essay publication written from a small village in southwest France.
It’s about the part that comes after surviving.
There’s a great deal written about the leaving. The crisis, the ending, the moment it all falls apart. Far less about the year that follows, when you’re technically fine, when everyone has stopped asking how you are, and you’re quietly working out what you actually want and how to decide anything at all without checking it with someone first.
That was the part I found with the least advice. So that’s the part I write about.
I’m 57. My marriage of 34 years ended in betrayal, and before that I left a faith and a community that cost me most of my friends and most of my family. I came out the other side, which I wasn’t really sure I would do.
What surprised me was how ordinary the rebuilding turned out to be. Not easy, just not very dramatic.
Booking the car in for a service, which I had never once done in my life. Choosing new windows for the house and paying for them myself.
Standing in the quiet after the fitter had driven away, looking at what I’d sorted out on my own, and feeling something close to pride for the first time in years.
Nobody tells you that’s what it looks like. They tell you about the big moments. Mine arrived on ordinary afternoons and I nearly missed them.
Where to start
If you’re wondering how to start over in midlife:
How it actually feels year later:
Why alone time could be your greatest gift:
What arrives, and when
One essay every Monday. Meditations on the podcast, with new ones added regularly. Occasionally a longer letter from the forest behind my house.
Every weekly essay is free. Members get the full archive of almost 300 pieces, almost 70 meditations, and the downloadable resources. If you’d like to know more about that, it’s all here.
This isn’t writing to scroll past. It’s writing to come back to, particularly on the days when everything feels like too much, or not quite enough.
If you’ve already done the leaving and you’re standing in the rubble wondering what to build, you’re in the right place.
Come in.
