Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.

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Lindsay Mead is a Princeton and Harford Business School graduate whose day job is working as an executive recruiter.

She writes a popular blog called A Design So Vast. Don't miss her recommended reading list. It's pretty awesome. She's written for a wide range of publications from Brain Magazine to Huff Post and writes frequent book reviews. She's the editor of a collection of essays on Being 40-ish, which includes contributions from other podcast guests of mine like Jill Cargman and KJ Del Antonia, as well as notables like Lee Woodruff and Sloan Crosley. Lindsay lives with her husband and

children in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Welcome, Lindsay, to moms don't have time to read books.

Thank you for having me. Can you please tell listeners what your amazing collection of essays,

which is called On Being 40-ish, is about? Yes. It is about the experience of turning 40, being in one's 40s. There are contributors who are older than that, so I personally think of it as a broader exploration of basically, you know, a particular season of life, which is, you know, 40s, broadly, but midlife for women. What made you want to compile all these essays? What made you want to tackle this

topic? I've always written a lot about, I mean, age, but it's kind of a way to get into thinking

about, I mean, the season is the right word for it. So I mean, I've always written posts every year

on my birthday, trying to capture kind of where my life is. And actually, so I have a long time

relationship with a former editor at Simon O'Sheuster, who's now actually working on her own book. But her name is Christine Pride, and she had the idea. So she came to me, actually. Oh, no way. Yeah, it was great. I mean, it was pretty nascent. I mean, she's the same, she's a little bit younger than I am, but also in her early 40s and said, you know, what would you think about doing this? And so we together kind of fleshed it out. And you had never written another book? I've written two books, but they're on the floor there. I've never written anything that's been published, no. I mean, other than online and essays, but no books, no. So this was like a big project to start. What did you think? Were you excited? Like tell me, she said, do you want to do it? Let me hear the story. She called, she and Brittany, who's my agent, who's also a close friend, know each other and they talked about it. And it felt a little bit, I don't know what the word is. It was like it just kind of fell into place. It felt very like it was meant to be. So, you know, I was immediately on board with the topic. And it actually

feels now, it feels like there's a little bit of sort of like I see energy about midlife, in my opinion.

Maybe it's just because I am in midlife. So, you know, it was pretty smooth. We talked a lot about

what we wanted the collection to look like and be about it. And then we brainstorm contributors and reach out to them. And so from there, it kind of rolled out. That's awesome. Yeah, he's fun. So what was it like for you to turn 40? Like, is this, when you were younger and you thought about life when you were 40, is this what you thought it would be like? It's a great question. And I often have often said for years that my life is exactly like I planned it and nothing like I imagined.

I love that. That's awesome. I mean, the actual experience of turning 40 was really sort of, you know, a non-event, actually. I mean, I remember the day I turned 40, I went, I picked my kids up at camp, which is like a hell of a drive over the bridge to the cave and driving them home.

I did all this laundry. We had dinner at home. And I was like, it's just a really regular day. And that was great. So I guess I would say it's exactly like I thought it was going to be, but also totally different. And that sounds really abstract. No, I relate to that.

I'm going to read a quote you said in the book.

You said, I love hearing Allison describe her 40s as her favorite decade because I feel the same way. This stage of life feels like one long exhale. It's also exhausting and overwhelming more than any other time in my life. I feel pulled thin and like so many people need me, which I just loved. Did you find that the other

contributors to your book felt similarly to you? I did. I think one of the things that, you know,

I read a lot of memoir, and I think that this book is not a memoir, but it's personal essays. And I think

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