The Writing Desk with Cee

Somewhere between raising children, building careers, paying mortgages, and learning how to listen to our bodies again…
love changes.

Midlife doesn’t blow relationships up overnight.
It softens them, stretches them, exposes them.

The passion that once crackled effortlessly may now need intention.
The conversations are deeper, but sometimes harder.
The silence isn’t awkward it’s revealing.

In midlife, love stops being about who we were
and becomes about who we are becoming.

This is the season where women quietly realise they’ve been holding too much.
Carrying the emotional load.
Making themselves smaller to keep everything steady.
Calling survival “commitment.”

And suddenly, the question isn’t
Do I love you?
It’s
Do I still belong here as myself?

Midlife love asks for honesty.
About desire.
About resentment.
About bodies changing, hormones shifting, needs evolving.

It’s confronting but also liberating.

Because when love grows with you, it becomes richer.
Less performative.
More intimate.
More real.

And when it doesn’t?
Midlife gives you the courage to choose yourself without apology.

This isn’t the end of romance.
It’s the rewrite.

Love in midlife is quieter but deeper.
Less fantasy more truth.
Less “forever no matter what”
and more “I choose you and myself today.”

And honestly?
That kind of love hits differently.

Second Act. Still in Heels.

They told us to slow down.
To soften.
To step aside quietly.

Instead, we rewrote the script with red lipstick, resilience, and a damn good pair of heels.

This book is for the women who’ve lived, loved, lost, healed, risen… and refused to disappear.
For the ones who know midlife isn’t an ending it’s the moment the lights finally hit just right.

✨NYC Glam meets Perth coastal fire
✨ Truth, reinvention, and unapologetic power
✨ Older. Wiser. Still dangerous in stilettos

Second Act, Still in Heels
📖 Available to readers March 2026

Stay tuned this next chapter is my boldest

HAPPY NEW YEAR.
OR… MAYBE THIS IS THE YEAR YOU FINALLY WAKE UP.
I used to think waking up looked glamorous.
Like a breakthrough moment.
A clean ending.
A perfectly timed reinvention with a good outfit and better lighting.
Turns out… it looks more like midlife.
Three marriages.
Five children.
Five grandchildren with one more little girl about to arrive.
And a woman standing in her kitchen, barefoot at 7am, realising she knows more now than she ever did when she thought she had it all figured out.
No one warns you that the real awakening doesn’t arrive quietly.
It arrives through relationships.
Through endings.
Through staying.
Through leaving.
Through loving again ..differently, more honestly.
This chapter of life doesn’t ask you to become someone new.
It asks you to finally stop pretending.
Your partners ?They weren’t mistakes. They were mirrors.
Your children?
They didn’t just grow you ..they cracked you open and rearranged the furniture.
Your grandchildren?
They arrive like soft punctuation marks reminding you what actually matters.
And somewhere between heartbreak and healing, between lipstick and laundry, you realise something sobering and liberating:
There is no arrival point.
No moment where you finally “get it right.”
No gold star for emotional maturity.
No finish line where a woman is declared healed, evolved, complete.
There is only this.
This season.
This body.
This life.
Midlife isn’t a crisis…it’s a reveal.
It strips you of the need to be chosen.
It asks you to choose yourself instead.
To be present when it’s uncomfortable.
To tell the truth without burning the room down.
To stop performing growth and start living it.
This is my second act.
Still in heels.
Still curious.
Still standing.
And if I’ve learned anything at all, it’s this:
Waking up isn’t about becoming better.
It’s about becoming honest.
from Second Act Still in Heels
Available 2026 ✨

In true writer-girl fashion, I had a little heart-flutter moment today...
My latest two books arrived from the printer ..fresh ink, crisp pages, that intoxicating smell of stories becoming real.
I ordered these copies as a Christmas gift for one of my beautiful friends, but when I opened the box, it hit me...
I've spent a whole year pouring my bones, my truth, my mess, my magic into these pages and holding them in my hands still feels like holding my own becoming.
• Her Story Her Truth
Not just a memoir a rally cry.
It's the book I wrote from the fringe of my childhood to the fire of my womanhood. Raw poetry, reclaimed power, and the barefoot journey through shame until I peeled it off, word by word.
This one is for the broken, the brave, the Queens who say
• "I'm fine" while quietly carrying entire worlds.
For the wild women who searched every room, every role, every religion... only to discover the truth lived in their bones the whole time.
HER TRUTH Her Story
It's not just my story it's our story.

A hand reached back in the dark for the weary, the warrior, and the woman who's still becoming.
• Unfiltered & Unapologetic
Now this book... whew.
This one is the permission slip I wrote for every woman who's been waiting for someone to save her only to realise the woman she's been waiting for... is herself.
It's chaos and cocktails.
Midlife awakening and wildly inappropriate confessions.
It's the laughter that makes you snort, the tears that come out of nowhere, and the whispered "oh my god... me too."

🕊️ Remembrance Day Reflections
By Cee Laing — Author, Writer, Woman of Words

At the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, of the eleventh month… we pause.
We put our tools down, still our busy hands, and silence the noise of life to remember.

To remember the men and women who stood tall in moments of fear, who carried courage like a heartbeat, and who gave everything so that we could wake to mornings like this free, safe, and kissed by sunlight.

As the clock strikes eleven, I think of the families who waited, the letters that never came home, the love stories interrupted by war, and the generations shaped by sacrifice. I think of how their bravery ripples through time reaching us here, in our ordinary moments of peace.

We live the lives they dreamed we’d have.
We laugh freely, love deeply, and walk streets they fought to protect.

So today, I stop. I breathe. I remember.
And I whisper into the stillness thank you.
For freedom. For hope. For the chance to begin again.

Lest we forget. 🌺

“I stopped shrinking for comfort.
Now I take up space — in rooms, in love, and in my own story.”

— Cee Laing, Unfiltered & Unapologetic

💫 Meet the Woman Behind the Words

Kia ora beautiful souls, I’m Cee Laing — author, matriarch, midlife muse, and the heart behind this book club.

Born in ’68, I was the quiet girl on the fringe the one who saw poetry in people, beauty in the broken, and stories hiding between the lines. While others fit neatly into boxes, I was off paving my own path with the misfits the dreamers, the ones who felt too much, loved too hard, and questioned everything.

I’ve lived, loved, lost, and learned. I’m a mum of five, and a mum to angels I never got to hold long enough. I’m also motherless now navigating my midlife era without the woman I thought would always be here to guide me. Those losses softened me, but they also deepened me. They made me write raw, real, unfiltered.

Two divorces taught me resilience. Midlife taught me rebirth. And love ❤️ true, soul-deep, best-friend-kind-of love taught me peace.

Now, I write for women like us: the ones rewriting their stories, rediscovering themselves, and daring to believe that their second act can be their most powerful yet.

This space this book club is where we gather in honesty, laughter, and sisterhood. Where every story matters, and every chapter counts.

So pull up a chair, pour your coffee (or your bubbles), and join me as we turn the page together.

✨ Cee Laing – Author | Matriarch | Midlife M

✍️ Author’s Quote of the Week

“A woman who writes her story doesn’t just heal her past — she rewrites her power.”

⸻

So here’s to us, the women who read, feel, dream, and rise — one page at a time. 💫

With love and gratitude,
Cee 🩷
Author | Dreamer | Midlife Muse

☕️ Monday Musings from the Author’s Desk

Good morning my beautiful book lovers 💕

What a way to start the week I’m beyond excited to share that my latest book is officially out now! ✨

If you’d like to order a copy (or check out my other titles), just hit me up directly I have a few signed copies available before they disappear into readers’ hands across the globe. 📚💌

And for those who want a little extra magic 🪄 I’m opening up my VIP list again. Drop a comment below saying “VIP” and I’ll add you in. You’ll receive a monthly behind-the-scenes newsletter with sneak peeks, launch updates, upcoming meet-and-greets, and all the exciting moments leading into 2026 the year of bold chapters and beautiful beginnings. 🌸

✨ Mindful Musings of a Matriarch ✨

This week, I sat with my thoughts really sat with them.
Not the tidy, filtered ones we show the world… but the messy, aching, beautiful kind that live deep in the corners of our heart.

I reminded myself that healing isn’t linear.
It’s creative.
It’s slow.
It’s tender.
And sometimes, it’s just showing up with pen in hand and heart wide open.

I’m learning that living a balanced and creative life isn’t about perfection it’s about presence. It’s giving yourself permission to feel it all, write it out, breathe it in, and let gratitude anchor you in the now.

💭 Gratitude affirmation:
“I am learning, growing, and healing in divine timing. I honour my story and the woman I’m becoming.”

Your turn, beautiful souls
What’s one thing you’re grateful for this week that’s helping you heal? Drop it below ⬇️💖