Dearest Unravelers and Unravelers-to-Be —
You wanna know what I heard the second I got off the plane this week in Los Angeles?
“Has Megyn Kelly apologized to you???”
The person asking is one of my favorite cable news hosts on television today — not from my former home, but a rival network. She happened to be on my flight in from JFK. I smiled so big when I saw her, and she gave me the kind of hug you give someone you haven’t seen in ten years.
We caught up quickly, and then I grabbed my cherry red suitcase from baggage claim and without skipping a beat, slipped into the city I most recently called home.
As for the answer to her question… I’ll get to that.
It’s been absolutely incredible being back in Los Angeles. Needed. Healing. And, in ways I couldn’t have predicted, magic-making.
I found myself returning to my old haunts this week. Have you ever done this? A major chapter of your life closes, and then, months or years later, you’re standing on the same ground — just a couple degrees different.
And suddenly you’re observing yourself… observe yourself: why did I make that choice? How did I justify that decision? When this happened, and then that happened, and then that happened… what kept me there? What lessons did I learn? And what am I most proud of?
At one point this week, I found myself standing in front of my old home in Venice. I hadn’t seen it since I left for New York in February.
My most recent LA home.
I loved that home. Probably my favorite place I’ve ever lived. Magic happened there. Real magic.
And also… a lot of other things.
I stood on the sidewalk looking at this house that had held so much of my old, not-too-distant life. I could almost see her in there — the woman I’d been. The choices she made. What she really, really wanted to believe.
And then, before I even realized what I was doing, I started speaking out loud. Yes, hello — crazy lady standing on a Venice sidewalk talking to herself and her old house.
The words immediately came.
First I said them to the house — to those rooms, to the front steps and everything they held. Then I said them to myself. The ancient Hawaiian Ho’oponopono prayer:
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.
Four sentences. An entire life inside them.
Life has a way of telling you when something is over. Sometimes months after you already know — after you’ve packed the boxes, boarded the plane, begun entirely again — the old life takes one final breath. A last gasp. I felt one very recently.
And instead of fighting it, or judging it, or pretending I didn’t feel it, I honored it. And then something unexpected happened: an old, familiar feeling showed up deep in my body. Woosh. I recognized it immediately. This time, I understood and accepted it for what it was. It was a gift.
Time to finally, truly let go. Cut the remaining tethers. Toss those invisible strands out into the vast, majestic Pacific.
I think that’s one of the stranger truths about freedom: sometimes you have to return to the scene of your old life to complete the loop and also discover you no longer belong to it.
My last few weeks on the road, driving across America, sitting with women as they told me about their own freedom — what it cost them, what they had to leave, what they had to unlearn, what they finally chose for themselves — stirred so much up in me.
Me and my Alabama bestie, Marian. 📷: Debby Hymowitz
What a gift this sacred pilgrimage has been so far.
I thought I was going out into America to ask women about their freedom. Turns out, I was walking deeper into my own. My hope (my prayer, really) is that when you meet these women, something stirs in you too.
Today I feel at peace. I am in prayer daily. I have hard boundaries just for me and me alone. I send love and light toward all parts and people from my past, to where I am now, and whatever comes next. And above all: I choose gratitude. It’s the only way I can move forward. ❤️
I just left a coffee date with Maria Shriver. She is so fucking awesome. Talk about closing a different kind of loop… I have her book on my bedside table in my childhood bedroom back in Atlanta. I feel lucky — like really lucky — to have so many phenomenal women in my orbit, and to now call Maria a friend. I’ve admired her for years as a journalist, and then, as I’ve gotten older, as a woman.
We talked about everything: Hoffman. Good girlfriends. Healthy boundaries. Men. Aging. Southern California. I told her about the women I’ve spent these last few weeks sitting with across America.
Maria asked me the same question several women here have asked me this week: what do you want from all of this? What do I want this project to be?
I’ve been sitting with that. Because something isn’t lost on me: during the exact stretch of time I dreamed up this journey, climbed into those trucks, and started collecting these stories, we lost two icons — Dolly and Gloria. Two women from a generation that lit so many torches for the rest of us.
There’s something Gloria once said that I can’t stop thinking about:
That’s what I want this project to inspire: women helping other women light their torches.
Because what happens when one woman lights another’s? And then she turns and lights another? And another? Just think of the possibilities — the ripple effect of all that light moving from woman to woman. Across generations. Across race and religion and geography and politics. Across kitchen tables and front porches and trucks. One woman’s courage becoming another woman’s permission. One woman’s truth helping another finally speak hers.
Imagine all those tiny flames multiplying.
Not power over one another. Power with one another. More light. More empathy. More courage. More freedom. And, eventually, change.
Maybe that’s how change actually happens. Not all at once. Torch by torch. Woman by woman. Light by light.
Which brings me… to Megyn Kelly.