Welcome to Peri-Normal! In this episode, Steph sits down with the amazing Britt Ballard, creator of The Unsent Show, for a real, unfiltered conversation about perimenopause, creativity, and what it means to be a woman in midlife.

We get into:

• The wild ride of perimenopause—the grief, the superpowers, the chin hairs, the metamorphosis.
• Britt says, “When I gave birth, the woman I was before then died.” We talk about the life cycles of womanhood and the constant deaths and rebirths along the way.
• Why “there’s nothing to fix” might be the most freeing mantra for this stage of life. “ I'm just alive. I'm just porous.”
• “Is it Trump or is it hormones?” Untangling the macro-crises from the micro, and discerning what is ours and what belongs to the collective.
• “My body is finally my own. This is new.” We unpack why midlife is finally the time to get in touch with what we really want.
• Honest talk about hormones, night sweats, bleeding, and the never-ending search for the right supplement or self-care ritual to solve all your problems. “There’s a tincture for that!”
• The gamification of perimenopause: On trying everything from pills to acupuncture, and still feeling like you’re “behind,” or “not doing it right.”
• “Not everything is about estrogen.” Like PMS, perimenopause is not to blame for all our problems or arguments—but it does make it difficult to mask and tolerate problematic behavior.
• Why Britt is looking forward to certain aspects of aging, and how she envisions women playing a role in her future crone life.

Join Britt in Denver on Friday, 9/26 for the Unsent Show, and make sure you find Steph in the audience and say hi! Tickets here.

And don't miss "Back to school comedy night" on 9/28 at the Lafayette Arts Hub. Join Steph and other local moms for hilarious storytelling and stand-up comedy. Tickets here.

Britt is a mother, writer, filmmaker, host of Unsent live show and podcast, and co-founder of the new healing arts non profit Three Things with her husband, rap artist Old Man Saxon. She’s a trained End of Life Doula through Peaceful Presence, and she guides older adults through 3rd Act Life Review Interviews as part of her legacy work offerings. She makes music as Baby Luck (she's not a singer but she can sing!) and more music will be pouring out of her soon. She really loves hosting Unsent Show and is expanding the show in exciting ways, so stay tuned! She’s grappling with grief and freedom, so she's currently writing a film about a daughter whose mom asks her to help her die, and a TV series about a barber turned death doula that she pitched at SeriesFest Pitch-a-thon and won, amongst many other short stories and essays! She also writes The Overflow on Substack, which is her happy place. (She doesn't love the word "should" but you should please read it.) She’s going to write a book someday, or maybe she already is?