Jill Carlyle Writes

What if naming the things we've lost is the first step in finding ourselves again?

Sometimes, it starts with a sock. Other times, it’s your laugh, your sense of self, or the version of you that existed before life demanded so much. Well, I wrote a flash piece about it...

This piece, Inventory, is more than a story; it’s a quiet reckoning. A woman stands in the aftermath of divorce, empty-nest silence, and midlife invisibility. She begins taking stock not just of missing Pyrex lids and earrings, but of something deeper.
Read on if you've ever looked in the mirror and wondered where you went.
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It started with a sock.

A single navy blue one she couldn’t find a match for it. Nora stared into the empty dryer like it might spit out the missing piece. It didn’t. These types of things have been happening a lot lately.

She went upstairs, opened her laptop, and created a spreadsheet. It started small.

Things I’ve Lost:
4 socks (not matching)
One silver hoop earring (last seen at Dana’s wedding)
2 Pyrex lids,
One library book from 1993 (The Bell Jar—how fitting)

The list kept growing, silently like mold:

One friendship (Stacy, from grad school, lost sometime after her third baby)
My waistline (approx. 2011)
The last conversation with my mother
My laugh (the real one, before I learned to soften it)

Nora stared at the screen, blinking against the white space. Her fingers hovered, then moved with a pulse of muscle memory: Date nights on Tuesdays
My wedding ring (technically in the jewelry box, but it hasn’t been on my finger in one hundred and thirty-seven days)
Interest in s*x
My voice in arguments
Mornings that didn’t begin with dread
The man who loved me when I was 29

Naming the things you’ve misplaced makes you believe you can find them again. But some losses are better off lost. Buried. Forgotten—or worse, remembered in the silence.

She hesitated and then typed:
Myself.

She deleted it. Retyped and fleshed it out:
Me—somewhere between motherhood and menopause.

She stared at the blinking cursor like it was going to say something back. But it didn’t.

It had been a year since Chuck left, six months since their last child packed up for college, and four months since the divorce was final. Every morning, she made the same coffee, walked the same three blocks, and avoided the same mirror.

Sometimes, she paused at the third house on the corner—the yellow one with the crooked wind chime and the peeling porch swing. An old woman lived there once, always waving from the steps with a mug in hand, humming something soft. Nora never asked her name.

One morning, the swing was still, the mug missing. She kept walking. That was the day she stopped smiling at strangers. It was easier to disappear when no one was looking anyway. Routine had become her camouflage.

Nora scrolled the list. It was long now. Uncomfortably honest.
She opened a new sheet.
Titled it
Things I Might Still Find:
My voice
My curiosity
My power
The person who’s waiting to love me at 59

Nora added one more line:
A pair of red stilettos—dusted off, waiting by the door.

She didn’t know where they’d take her. But she knew she was done waiting for permission.

✨ BIG MOMENT ALERT! ✨

OMG, it’s happening—Her Story So Far is officially in print for the very first time!! Okay, okay, it’s just the proof copies (for now), BUT after 4.5 years, I’m finally going to see Kelsi Jo’s story ON THE FREAKING PAGE! 😭📖💃

I get to hold it, earmark it, feel the pages, and devour it like the obsessed-with-the-story fan that I am! And guess what? **Pre-orders are in FULL SWING!

💫 Signed copies? YES.
🚚 Free shipping? YOU BETCHA.
📆 Pre-orders arrive TWO WEEKS before pub day!*

So tell me—have you grabbed your signed copy yet?! Let’s freaking GOOOO! 🥂📚

https://theempoweredpress.thrivecart.com/pre-order-her-story-so-far-pb/