#Unsettled

I was sitting in a room full of women on a Thursday night.

It was an annual local charity event—a weeknight escape where we feed the kids, hand off the household baton, and slip out the door for a few hours that belong solely to us.

This year, the energy hit differently. There was a DJ, and she was playing the exact soundtrack of my late teens and early twenties. High school throwbacks. College anthems. After a glass or two of wine and the collective exhale of a room full of tired women, something shifted.

The female spirit in that room woke up.

I sat back and surveyed the scene. I looked at the same women I see every day at grocery store checkouts, school drop-offs, and charity luncheons. The women who make every single decision from sunrise to bedtime. The household CEOs. The homework supervisors. The unpaid Uber drivers. The ones who are constantly expected to have it all together, look poised, and keep the machinery of family life humming smoothly.

And right in front of my eyes, every single one of them completely let loose.

There was no pretense. No performative perfectionism. Just a room full of grown women temporarily shedding the invisible weight of “mom life” and grooving like nobody was watching.

It made me wonder: When did we agree to start suppressing the fun in our souls? And for what? To keep up appearances? To fit into the pristine mold of the Stepford suburbanite?

As I watched the crowd, I chuckled to myself. In that moment, I wanted so desperately to travel back twenty or thirty years—to be that carefree girl on a crowded floor, lost in the bass, grooving with her friends, entirely free.

Here is the truth we tend to forget in the grind of daily logistics: We may be older, and we may be wiser, but inside, that young, wild girl hasn’t gone anywhere. She’s just buried under layers of calendar invites, laundry piles, and societal expectations.

A few days later, I was still thinking about that night. Why do we feel forced into the Pinterest-mom stereotype the moment we reach a certain age? Why do we lengthen our hemlines, tone down our makeup, and quiet our edges just to make everyone else comfortable?

I’ve never fit neatly into that mold. I’m rapidly approaching 50, and I still wear plunging tank tops. I’m still a gypsy spirit at heart. I push fashion limits. I don’t wear Lilly Pulitzer—not that there’s anything wrong with it; it just isn’t my vibe.

For a while, I tried to play the game. I call that phase “PC Stephanie.” I cared about appearances and how I was perceived at events. It was a requirement growing up with a parent in the public eye and then being married to an MLB player. But anyone who truly knows me today knows that PC Stephanie has left the building. I am direct. I have no filter. I give it to you straight. I know it’s not always well received. I know people talk behind my back.

Honestly? I don’t care.

Because what I saw in that room on Bingo night was a room full of women who had temporarily adopted that exact same freedom. And it was breathtaking.

Consider this your official permission slip to reclaim that part of yourself. It is OK if you don’t feel like cooking dinner and order pizza two nights in a row. It is OK to drop your kids off at school and drive straight to the beach, picking them up hours later with sand on your legs and a wet bikini under your cover-up. (My late mother is probably rolling over in her grave as I write this—she never left the house looking anything less than pristine.) And most importantly, it is OK to stop living inside a glass box, constantly on display, waiting for approval.

My daughter reminds me all the time: YOLO. You only live once.

As the mother of a young woman, I am consciously making the choice to stay out of the mold. I drive with the top down, windows down, and the music turned all the way up. I want her to see a woman who embraces life at full volume, without apology.

So put on the edgy outfit that isn’t your “normal” pick. Reclaim the wild, uninhibited woman you used to be. She’s still in there, waiting for you to let her out.

Hop in the passenger seat. We’re going for a ride.