Oksana Skidan

I was listening to a speaker today, and it really upset me because of the techniques she was using. I’ve been planning to write about this for a while, but today I finally did.

Check out my new blog on my website—link in bio.

❤️

A few moments from this evening.

Acrylic on paper.

A few thoughts from this exact moment.

I keep realizing how much of life passes through us before we pause long enough to notice it.

What thoughts are moving through you right now?

My shopping trip had a message for me.

I went looking for summer, for color, for a different feeling.

And almost immediately, I reached for the same black linen pants.

That was the moment.

Because it was never about the pants. It was about pattern.

We say we want change. A new season. More joy. More life.
And then, so often, we choose from the same self.

This week’s Create Letter is about that quiet midlife truth:
wanting different and choosing different are not the same thing.

The issue is called The Black Pants.

Link in bio.

A first look inside The Courage to Know.

The book is now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback, and it is beginning its life with readers.

A book changes the moment it leaves the writer’s hands.

Now it begins to meet its readers.

Link in bio.

This week’s letter is a very personal one.

My first book came out on Amazon on May 5, and I wrote about what it feels like to finally finish a dream, hold it in your hands, and begin living into a completely new identity. Read below:

My Debut Memoir Is Out Now on Amazon | Create Your Midlife™ Newsletter First book published on Amazon. Debut memoir about music, resilience, self-discovery, and becoming a published author after finishing a lifelong dream

It has been 24 hours since I welcomed a new identity into my life.

Published author.

My first book, The Courage to Know: What a Life on Stage Taught Me About Becoming Yourself, Resilience, and Self-Discovery, is now available on Amazon.

This book began as a return to my life in music — to the discipline, the stages, the silence, the pressure, the beauty, and everything a life in classical performance teaches a person.

But as I wrote it, I realized it was also about something more universal.

It was about the courage it takes to understand your own life.

We often live through entire chapters before we truly know what they gave us, what they asked of us, and who they shaped us to become.

The Courage to Know is my reflection on that kind of knowing.

It is for readers who love memoir, music, personal growth, resilience, and the deeper work of becoming yourself.

Available now on Amazon:

The Courage to Know: What a Life on Stage Taught Me About Becoming Yourself, Resilience, and Self-Discovery The Courage to Know: What a Life on Stage Taught Me About Becoming Yourself, Resilience, and Self-Discovery

Life is built out of moments.
Some we see.
Some we miss.

These are a few of mine.

At some point in midlife, a woman does not need more advice. She needs a place where life can finally land.

That is what I wrote about in my new piece, What Silence Gives Back.

What Silence Gives Back At some point, a woman needs a place where life can finally land

Spring cleaning is rarely only about the closet.

By midlife, many of us are still carrying things inside ourselves that no longer fit — old beliefs, old expectations, old emotional habits, old ways of saying yes before we even check with ourselves.

We clean drawers.
We refresh rooms.
We let things go.

But inside, we often keep carrying the same old things for years.

A belief that once helped may now feel too small.
A role we carried well may now feel too tight.
An emotional habit that once protected us may now feel more draining than useful.

Midlife may be the season when a woman finally needs to clean out her inner closet.

Not to become someone else.
Not to erase her past.
But to make more room for who she is now.

What no longer fits in this season of your life?

Read the full piece — link in bio.