E11: Why the Midlife Conversation Needs to Start Sooner with Kerri Devine

Nobody told us perimenopause could start in our early forties (or sooner). Nobody told us it could last a decade. And nobody told us it would arrive at the same time as everything else — aging parents, kids leaving home, career questions, identity shifts.

Kerri Devine is the founder of Hot in Charleston and the creator of Midlife Monologues — a sold-out live show that brings together three generations of women to tell the truth about what it means to be a woman moving through the seasons of her life. In this conversation we talk about why the midlife conversation needs to start sooner, why storytelling is medicine, and why it's never too late to step into what's next.

What We Talk About In This Episode

• Why perimenopause catches so many women completely off guard
• The meltdown in a craft store that changed the direction of Kerri's life
• How Midlife Monologues was born — and why it sold out immediately
• Why this conversation belongs to women of all ages, not just midlife women
• The non-death losses we don't talk about enough — and why they need to be named
• Why Kerri believes storytelling is medicine
• Leaving a high-powered communications career to write about what actually matters
• What it means to pivot with self-compassion and courage
• Why it's not too late — for any of us

Connect with Kerri Devine

Instagram: @hotincharleston

Website: https://kerridevine.com/

Get Angie's Book: Girl in the Spotlight — available in print and audio 

Subscribe to Angie's weekly letter Hello Friday

Instagram: @angiemizzell

Transcript

Copy

Kerri Devine (00:00)
I was experiencing terrible insomnia and anxiety and raging at my family. And I didn't recognize myself.

I basically had this meltdown in a craft superstore and literally gave myself a concussion. I confided in a new friend, what had happened.

And she said, check your levels. And I said, levels. I didn't know what she was talking about. She said, sure. You're probably in menopause. And it had never occurred to me, of course, because as you said, Angie, our mothers and doctors tell us very little about this. The cultural conversation is shifting, thank goodness. But we're the first generation of women.

who are talking about these changes and it's fantastic.

Angie Mizzell (00:45)
Hey, I'm Angie Mizzell and welcome to More Like You. This is the podcast about letting go of the life you thought you should live and into a life that feels more like you.

I'm a former TV journalist turned author and storyteller, and I know how it feels to chase success that looks good on paper but doesn't feel right in your heart.

Walking away from that life changed everything for me. It taught me to trust myself, embrace change, and create a life that feels like home. And now I'm here to help you do the same.

Today's guest is Kerri Devine, writer, storyteller, and founder of Hot in Charleston,

a community that helps women feel seen and supported as they navigate life transitions. Her show, Midlife Monologues creates space for honest conversations about motherhood, midlife, menopause, and more.

But this just isn't a midlife conversation. It's one we need to start sooner.

helping change the narrative so women can move through these seasons with more awareness, support, and maybe a little less fear and a lot more ease and authenticity.

Angie Mizzell (01:53)
So Kerri, thank you so much for being here today.

I want to start by talking about this wonderful event that's coming to Charleston next week, Midlife Monologues. And then after we talk about the event, we're going to branch out to talk about why this event is so important on a larger scale.

Kerri Devine (02:11)
Midlife Monologues, I created it after I held an event for World Menopause Day at the Gibbs Museum in October of 22. And when I discovered that the women in the audience were from their 20s to their 70s, I thought, this is an intergenerational conversation and we need to bring it to the stage. So we staged our first show, Midlife Monologues, in October of 23.

and the show sold out and we had to add a second one. And we got sort of a cult following. So we decided to bring it to the stage again this year, March 12th at Charleston Music Hall. We have an audience of almost a thousand women from three generations, a cast of 25 women from their twenties to their sixties and a three...

part play, part pep rally, part rock concert that chronicles the arc of a woman's life from the strength of girlhood to the bright lights of adolescence to all the choices that we make and the circumstances that we face in life and then to the midlife pivot and what, you know, who are we and what's next for us.

Angie Mizzell (03:23)
What I love about this show is that it is for people of all ages. And it's something we're realizing at Midlife. We should have been having the conversation about menopause much earlier. And I know that I was terrified as a younger person of being the age that I am now. I just turned 50 a few months ago. And now that I'm here, I'm like,

It's fine. You know, there's really nothing to be afraid of.

But knowledge is power we talk to our young girls about the changes they're going to go through when they hit puberty. But we don't really discuss, at least I have no memory of discussing this with my mother or grandmother about what really happens when your body changes and you transition into this season of life. So.

I'm so encouraged that we're having this conversation now. But I think part of it is you have to make this conversation relevant to younger people. And how do we do that so they don't think this is a conversation for somebody else? It is a conversation for them.

Kerri Devine (04:32)
Right, it's so true. And that's why we've made it an intergenerational dialogue. And we're having an audience of three generations. This all started for me when I moved to Charleston. I was in my mid to late 40s and I was experiencing terrible insomnia and anxiety and raging at my family. And I didn't recognize myself. I was chairing an event.

And I had just moved and I thought, well, I'll be back to myself when this is over. But I wasn't. And I basically had this meltdown in a craft superstore and literally gave myself a concussion. I was with my teenage daughter and she called my husband and said, mom's freaking out, I confided in a new friend, what had happened.

And she said, check your levels. And I said, levels. I didn't know what she was talking about. Of course. She said, sure. You're probably in menopause. And it had never occurred to me, of course, because as you said, Angie, our mothers and doctors tell us very little about this. The cultural conversation is shifting, thank goodness. But we're the first generation of women.

who are talking about these changes and it's fantastic.

Kerri Devine (05:49)
Everybody's heard of hot flashes, but nobody really understands that perimenopause, which on average starts at age 41 and can last a decade,

you're facing all these hormonal shifts that are really changing the way you look and feel and behave and impacting your relationships. And this happens at a time of other ruptures because when we reach our 40s and 50s,

Perhaps we're facing an illness. Perhaps we're facing an illness of parents. Our parents are aging and passing. We may be facing divorce. career shifts, retirement, losses of any kind, and wondering, who am I after decades of caring for other people? And these really difficult big questions happen at a time of

tremendous physical and emotional changes. And I think that it's a lot. And so the goal of midlife monologues is to help women feel seen and supported in their journey, to feel less alone. And many people believe, many artists and increasingly the medical community, that storytelling is medicine.

Angie Mizzell (06:58)
Absolutely, and you are speaking my language on so many aspects of what you just said. I want to start with my own story and how it connects. So I left my television news career at age 30 when it was on the rise because I realized something felt off about it. And there's a deeper story behind that. But for so long, my message really was about

learning to let go of that timeline, don't feel like you're in such a rush and how to navigate an identity shift. So it was a complete surprise to me to arrive at this stage and go, wait, why do I suddenly feel like I don't know who I am?

I couldn't find that part of me that I felt like was always with me. And it was because of all the changes you're talking about. We had a tragedy in my family. My mom got sick. My son went off to college. In my book, I published a book at 49. So it was in the middle of a huge success and win.

And yet I was feeling tired and not like myself. And I really was like, what is happening? And it's very surprising to me that it didn't occur to me that I might be in perimenopause, that my hormones were shifting. I was always like, what is wrong with me? Why can't I fix this? Why can't I solve this?

We need to talk about this more and how do we get through it? And you answered part of it. The storytelling part is the

Kerri Devine (08:39)
When I created my platform, Hot in Charleston, as a community for women in midlife, I committed to providing resources and facilitating the conversation on social media on Instagram at Hot in Charleston. And I also set about to hold events. And my first event was this event that I mentioned, World Menopause Day at the Gibbs Museum. I conducted research.

which showed that 99 % of women ages 35 to 65 were not familiar with perimenopause, were ill-prepared for perimenopause. But 75 % of the women said that they wanted to hear stories from women like them going through what they were going through. And so that's why when we had that event, we didn't just have a panel of doctors and have a medical lecture. We invited memoirists.

to tell their stories of changes that they went through in their lives. And the feedback was really, really powerful. And I think that we have to normalize these pauses in life no matter when they come, when women feel a little bit lost. Because no matter our age, there's always going to be new chapters, right? And one of the groups that I'm partnering with is the Memory Circle.

And there's a grief expert and writer named Barry Leiner-Grant. We're doing an event, anybody who joins the show in person or by live stream, the next day on March 13th from 2 3 PM Eastern time free to the first 100 participants, we're going to be doing a journaling session. And Barry is going to be talking about all these non-death losses that women will experience in their lives. And I find it so

relevant because when my daughter was aging, she's 22 now about to graduate college, you know, there are women, I have a best friend, Mary Ann, my best friend from childhood. And she says every chapter is better than the next. And, but I never felt that way. I always felt like there were little deaths going on. You know, when she turned two, I mourned it when she

went to elementary school, when she went to high school, when she went to college, everything felt like a little death to me. And here, of course, I felt so much shame in that because my daughter was healthy and thriving, and there were a lot of families that didn't have that situation. But I felt a lot of shame. And Mary Laura Philpott is coming to the show on March 12th. She's a fabulous memoirist. She wrote, I Miss You When I Blank and Bomb Shelter.

And the piece that she's reading is about having everything. She had the perfect house and she was a successful writer and she had an office of her own where she could hide out and she had the right car and she would drive the kids to the right school. And yet she was deeply, deeply unhappy and she felt tremendous shame in that. And I think that the more that we share our stories,

the more that it normalizes these ruptures and pauses and identity questions and helps us feel more supported on our journey.

Angie Mizzell (11:48)
the other thing that I think is so interesting about your story is that you had a high profile career, but you still do. You're still out in the public eye, but you started out doing something similar, but different, know, telling other people's stories. And then you got to a crossroads where you were like, I need to change. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Kerri Devine (12:11)
Sure. Well, I was always a storyteller. At college, I studied under a former White House speechwriter, and I became enamored with the idea of speechwriting. And I worked in Washington, D.C. doing issues management. you know, I'm sort of a spin doctor for all the bad guys or the misunderstood guys or the corporate, you know, guys.

And then I went to New York and I had a career in public relations, marketing and communications. And I worked in marketing at Citibank and Merrill Lynch, was the chief speechwriter for the CEO. And I was in 9-11 and part of the team that helped respond to that crisis. And so I found it especially ironic that when it came time to my own crisis,

that I, this ghostwriter who had a playbook for everybody else's problems, I had none for my midlife crisis. And so I was always an essayist. I had published, I think, one piece, but I really wanted to dive into storytelling. So I was doing consulting at that point. People would hire me to write a speech for, let's say, a former president, and then I'd get to know the nonprofit and say, well, gosh.

You could be raising a lot more money. You need a new strategic communications plan. So I was doing a lot of consulting. I fired all my clients, went back to school for an MFA in creative writing and dedicated myself to writing about the in-between times of life where women felt a little bit off-kilter. And then that's when I created Hot in Charleston, this midlife community and started facilitating these important conversations.

Angie Mizzell (13:57)
I'm just realizing this now. Probably the thing that was missing in your former career, that was missing in my journalism career, we obviously enjoy telling other people's stories because here I am talking to you, helping you tell your story. You're doing the same for women, but we got lost. And I think that can happen to a lot of people in their careers and in their lives.

that we lose our story. We are looking out and helping other people and our own story gets lost. And that is what you're doing is you're helping other people look at their own stories while you're also telling yours, which is amazing.

Kerri Devine (14:41)
I feel tremendous empathy and I think that this show, you know, storytelling, the surgeon general talked about how storytelling helps build empathy and connection in our increasingly isolated communities and it's really true. I feel tremendous empathy for all the women who've spoken to me and said that they feel lost. And I think that this show is really about giving women the courage.

to pivot to what's next with self-compassion and courage and the support of their families and communities.

Angie Mizzell (15:14)
One of the themes, a big theme of this podcast is how these life transitions are opportunities to become more of who we really are so that we don't lose ourselves. we've already touched on the storytelling piece, but do you have any encouragement or wisdom for people going through a transition that there is like

life on the other side where you can thrive again and feel like who you are meant to be.

Kerri Devine (15:52)
I think that, you know, all the challenges of perimenopause and menopause, which can last decades, I am going to be 59 years old. I am still not officially in menopause. I am still in perimenopause. And it's been a deeply challenging period. But there is a gift in it. And the gift is the pause and the pause to step back.

and embrace selfishness after decades of putting other people first and to really ask the question, who am I now? Who am I unbound from these roles that I have always held for other people? And what do I want? And I think if we talk to each other about how we feel and what we're afraid of and what our dreams are, I think that

We find a shared humanity that can give us some courage to move forward in a new direction.

Angie Mizzell (16:51)
Yeah, you know, I have caught myself thinking, even though I know this isn't true, but is it too late for me? And I'm still starting new things, doing new things, but, and I do think it is just maybe the way our society is structured. That I've heard women say, you know, I start to feel invisible.

Kerri Devine (17:09)
Mm-hmm.

Angie Mizzell (17:15)
And we have got to keep having these conversations because it's not too late

obviously you agree, but please jump in on this false feeling that we have that it's too late.

Kerri Devine (17:27)
Women are extraordinarily hard on themselves. But I think that this is really changing. I think the cultural view and the conversations are changing and I think it's gonna be enormously positive for women, especially women over 50.

Angie Mizzell (17:34)
Yeah.

Yes. And I just want to thank you for being part of the reason and part of that change. What is next for midlife monologues? Because this event's in Charleston, it's happening in a week. People will be listening to this podcast beyond that. There's more to come.

Kerri Devine (18:02)
Yes, we're very excited because this show is going to become part of a national movement and Midlife Monologues will get a new original script under the leadership of Constance Zimmer.

the actress from Entourage and Unreal and House of Cards. And she's leading a big creative community with documentary filmmaker Abby Epstein and a lot of incredible actresses including Shannola Hampton who's in the Charleston show March 12th.

And.

There are plans for midlife monologues to be on stage in New York, Los Angeles, and hopefully beyond. So this is just the start, and we're really proud to be part of this national

Angie Mizzell (18:46)
Kerri, before we go, tell us about the show in Charleston next week, Midlife Monologues. An amazing cast.

Kerri Devine (18:55)
Incredible cast, incredible ensemble cast. March 12th, 7 p.m. Charleston Music Hall. We have culture shifting poet Kate Baer extraordinary poet, focused on motherhood.

Shannola Hampton, she was in the cast of Shameless and is on NBC's Found. She will be performing the work of US poet laureate Ada Lamone and a poem of Kate Baer which they're so incredible. Abby Carter, won American Idol. She'll be singing a cover of the song, What Was I Made For by Billie Eilish.

Angie Mizzell (19:31)
well.

Kerri Devine (19:32)
Margaret Ann Florence is an incredible actress of television stage. She's a model and a singer, and she's a Charleston girl. She's in the show. She'll be performing a piece from Eat, Pray, Love with the permission of author Elizabeth Gilbert. We have Hayes Warner, who is a rising pop star.

She is going to be absolutely huge. She will blow people away. Quina Parler of Charleston has won two Grammys. We have humorist Deena Lang, Kelley Jakel of Pitch Perfect. We have the whole ensemble cast of Pure Theater, an extraordinary treasure in Charleston.

And we have Dr. Tonya Matthews of the International African American Museum. We have a very diverse cast. We also have Maria White. She is an award-winning potter. She's going to be doing something very special on stage. So this is a multi-genre showcase, and it's very, very special. And there's a reason why, which I say with pride, that critics called it powerful and unforgettable, because it truly is.

Angie Mizzell (20:37)
I have chills. am so, I can't even believe that I'm going to witness this in a week. Thank you so much for just sharing this with our community. But the good news is that if you don't live in Charleston or if you aren't able to get a ticket, because it's almost sold out, you do have a live stream that people can purchase tickets for that too.

Kerri Devine (20:57)
We do.

We have a live stream you can tune in from anywhere in your jammies with your popcorn with your favorite beverage, bring

live stream tickets are $45 and they're available on the main

uh,

support from the show goes to women's mental health at every, stage of life. we'll

will be giving money to the Jen Foundation for Adolescent Mental Health, Postpartum Support Charleston, Mugs for Moms, and Menopause Mandate for their menopause helpline, free menopause helpline. This organization was co-founded by Naomi Watts, and I'm a proud national champion of menopause mandate. So.

the people who watch it will really be transformed and they'll be doing a lot of good too.

Angie Mizzell (21:51)
So for those who find this podcast episode later, that the event has passed, how can they stay a part of this conversation, connect with you, and just follow what is next

Kerri Devine (22:02)
Stay tuned at Hot in Charleston on Instagram and they can also follow midlife monologues for news on the next show.

Angie Mizzell (22:10)
All right, thank you so much for being here today and for all of the good work you're doing to shift this conversation and change the way we view aging. It's not too late for any of us.

Kerri Devine (22:21)
Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

Angie Mizzell (22:25)
I keep coming back to something that Kerri said, and it's about how sharing our stories makes us feel less alone Midlife monologues isn't just about midlife. It's about giving voice to the experiences that we all go through, but we don't always talk about.

I hope this episode reminds you that your story matters too.

If this episode resonated with you, I'd love to hear from you. Screenshot this episode, share it on Instagram, and tag me @angiemizzell so we can keep the conversation going. And if you haven't already, be sure to follow the show so you never miss an episode. if you're someone navigating a big transition, if you're looking for more courage to step into your true self, or you just need a reminder that you are not alone,

invite you to sign up for my Hello Friday newsletter. Every week I share personal stories and insights to help you create a life that feels like home. You can sign up at angiemizzell.com Thank you so much for being here. Until next time, keep trusting yourself, keep following what feels like home, and I'll see you soon.