Patina: A surface appearance of something grown beautiful, especially with age or use…
Hello, and welcome to Patina, a newsletter for wise women of a certain age. I’m Dina, and this newsletter is the continuation of my living, breathing midlife reinvention. Back around 2017 as I was approaching 50, I started to itch for something more. I had been a lawyer for a minute, and spent the subsequent 20ish years in and around the legal industry, mostly as the owner of a legal search consultancy. My marriage was solid and my step-sons were thriving, but they were mostly grown, and I was in search of new purpose and meaning as well as answers to the many questions I had about all of the shifting that was going on in my life. This was before midlife and menopause moved into the zeitgeist, and at the time you would be hard-pressed to find a menopause article that didn’t originate from the UK. We just weren’t taking about these things openly here.
So despite residing for most of my years privately and squarely within my comfort zone, I decided open up and share in an effort to find the community I was so desperately craving (and imagined others were too) and to create the type of content I wanted to read but couldn’t really find. I thought a lot about what to call that original blog, and landed on Patina to evoke a feeling of time-worn beauty, which is how I was coming to think about aging. Not shiny and new, yet somehow more beautiful in many ways, rich in texture and uniquely layered with the passage of time and exposure to the elements.
I was a little (okay, a lot) late to the blog party when I launched Patina in February 2020, and I didn’t really have any idea how it all worked, but what started as an itch ultimately turned into a soulful community of fellow midlife journeyers. However, pushing publish on a blog post feels a little like tossing a message in a bottle out to sea- you’re never sure if it will be received or who might find it. Instagram became a supplemental outlet, which led to meaningful connection and was (mostly) nice until the almighty algorithm began to dictate what type of content it would push out and what would remain a whisper. Also, as you might find, I am a little too wordy to neatly fit my musings into a 2200 character limit!
Which is how I find myself here, hoping to keep the conversation going with you and meld the best of those worlds in this powerful ecosystem of thoughtful, inspirational writers. The platform may be different, but the goals remain the same: to connect, to create and grow a community that lifts, to share our stories, to shine light, to inform and inspire, and to continue to reframe the way we think and talk about age in this country.
I’m also currently co-editing an anthology of raw, relatable, and very real midlife stories- stories of the trials and triumphs- and will be sharing updates here about what will be a must-read for every midlife woman.
So what can you expect when you subscribe?
I’ll be working it out as I go, which is why I’m not turning on the paywall as of yet. A (mid)lifestyle blog, a resource guide, a place to meet like-minded women, a spotlight on women doing amazing things in the second half- these are the things I have in mind. A midlife mood salad of sorts (which incidentally was the other name I had in mind for this newsletter when debating whether to change it). Ultimately I hope it will be a warm, comfortable space that will delight and inspire. A community where you will feel seen, heard, and visible AF. Society may not have fully gotten the message yet, but we will keep shouting it here and chipping away at outdated narratives as we go. We are a force to be reckoned with, aging boldly, sharing our stories and making great things happen as we go.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here! I could not be more grateful for your support and for this sisterhood, and I look forward to connecting with you as we go and as we grow.
