Blake Lively, the Texts, and a Very Hot Week ☕

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If you’re new here, welcome to Girlhood — the group chat we should have had all along, where we talk openly about our bodies, the questions we whisper about, and the everyday moments that make us pause, laugh, or rethink life. This week’s issue is all about paying attention: to culture, to friendship, to health, and to the bodies we live in every day. Let’s dive in!

Hi friend,

As someone who has spent the better part of the past 22 days away from social media (thank you, Opal app), I picked a truly chaotic week to check back in. I opened Instagram and immediately felt like I’d missed several chapters of a very loud book. The Blake Lively / Justin Baldoni situation had escalated straight into the text messages, Brooklyn Beckham had turned his Instagram Story into a family tell-all, Taylor Swift was somehow involved (of course), and everyone seemed extremely confident about which side they were on.

What surprised me is that I didn’t feel the urge to dogpile Justin Baldoni the way I expected to. Truthfully, I’ve kind of always been on his side — not in an “I don’t believe women” way, but in a harder-to-explain, this doesn’t sit right with me way.

If anything, Blake Lively’s energy doesn’t land for me. She exudes a kind of mean-girl confidence that isn’t just cringeworthy on paper (see: her unhinged letter to the PGA), but shows up in subtle power moves and perfectly timed charm. The kind you’ve probably encountered at work, at school drop-off, or in a group chat you eventually muted for your own mental health.

Then Taylor Swift entered the conversation, which added a whole other layer. Listen: I totally understand defending your BFF, but when someone’s brand is built on calling things out and advocating for women, people notice when behavior feels misaligned. That doesn’t erase the good, but it does make the moment harder to swallow.

Meanwhile, Brooklyn Beckham’s Instagram Story was doing something else entirely — less polished, less strategic, and impossible to unsee. Different situation, same energy: carefully curated images cracking in real time, with no PR buffer in sight.

What I actually appreciate is that none of this is being quietly swept under the rug. People are allowed to say something feels off now, without being accused of betraying womanhood or missing the point.

And yes, it’s entertaining. I’m not above admitting that. But it’s also revealing. Watching who gets defended, who gets dismissed, and who becomes untouchable says a lot about how power still works, even in spaces that claim progress.

Celebrities aren’t messier than they used to be. We’re just less willing to play along. The tea is piping hot — and for once, it actually feels like it’s saying something.

🔍 Ask Clara: Why do celebrity scandals feel so personal?

💌 3 Reasons to Write Your BFF a Letter (Even If You Never Send It)

Next week would have been my best friend’s 37th birthday, but instead, she’ll stay forever 31 (morbid, I know). Lisa died of breast cancer almost six years ago, and tucked away in my nightstand is a note she wrote me during her cancer battle — one I still haven’t opened since she passed. I don’t reread it. I don’t even really touch it. And yet, just knowing it’s there gives me a surprising amount of peace.

I was reminded of this while listening to The Correspondent by Virginia Evans, a book that makes you really think about what words on paper can actually hold. Evans describes letters as “the pieces of a magnificent puzzle… the links of a long chain,” scattered across the world like “the fragile blown seeds of a dying dandelion.” Even if those links are never put back together, even if they’re never reread, isn’t there something kind of wonderful in that? The idea that a life, a love, a soul-altering friendship, is preserved somewhere in ink.

Which brings me to three reasons to write your best friend a letter (aside from the fact that life is fragile, time is weird, and anything can happen at any moment... sorry).

First, letters slow you down enough to tell the truth. You can’t casually skip over what matters most. Writing by hand forces a pause. It asks you to sit with what you really want to say instead of skimming the surface.

Second, letters endure. In a world of algorithms and iClouds, where memories are filtered, sorted, and, let’s be honest, one forgotten password away from disappearing, letters preserve something real. They live in drawers and boxes, aging alongside us, asking nothing but to be kept.

And finally, letters outlive the moment they’re written in. As Evans puts it, “this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone.” Sometimes the comfort isn’t in reading the words at all; it’s simply in knowing they exist.

So write the letter. Send it, or keep it. You never know how, or when, it might matter.

🔍 Ask Clara: What to know about cancer in women under 40

🫠 Being Proactive About Your Health Shouldn’t Be This Hard

Speaking of breast cancer, I’m currently three months overdue for a breast MRI. Not because I forgot or decided to live dangerously, but because staying on top of your health sometimes feels like it requires a level of coordination usually reserved for being the maid of honor at your friend’s way-too-over-the-top wedding. 

I’m almost 37, which sounds reassuring until you add that I have an ATM gene mutation that puts me at about a 20% lifetime risk of breast cancer. Preventive screening isn’t optional for me; it’s the plan. Or at least, it’s the plan on paper.

In reality, this appointment has been scheduled and rescheduled five times. Some of that was logistics, some of it was insurance, and some of it was a mysteriously missing prior authorization. And yes, one of those times was on me, because the holidays happened and I am a working mom with three kids, not a robot built for medical administration.

Now insurance is saying the MRI isn’t medically necessary, which is an interesting take given that my medical history, genetic testing, and actual doctor seem to disagree. So I need to call my doctor again, during business hours, to untangle a situation that somehow exists despite us living in an era where we can track our cycles, our sleep, our steps, and our glucose levels from our phones.

That’s the part that gets me. We have more health information at our fingertips than ever before, yet the system itself feels more confusing, fragmented, and exhausting than it should. 

Preventive care sounds proactive and empowering until you’re stuck chasing faxes, decoding insurance language, and wondering how many women fall behind not because they don’t care, but because they’re stretched thin.

I’ll get the MRI. I always do. But sometimes it feels like the real risk isn’t forgetting to take care of ourselves — it’s how hard the system makes it to follow through.

🔍 Ask Clara: How do you know if you’re considered “high risk” for breast cancer screening?

One Habit You’ll Keep

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Make It Your Habit

🩸 The Month My Body Finally Got the Memo (Too Late)

The other day, I got my period on cycle day 30, and my first thought was: Didn’t I just have this?

Which is funny, because for most of my life, the opposite was true. Periods were rare, unpredictable guests. Ovulation was more theory than practice. And now — after eight years of infertility, anovulation, PCOS, and three IVF babies — here I am, suddenly having the most textbook 30-day cycle imaginable.

Call it a Christmas miracle. Call it “just relaxing” (please don’t). Call it a sick little cosmic joke. Because of course I’m ovulating regularly for the first time in my life at the exact moment I am very, very done trying to get pregnant.

What surprised me most wasn’t the timing; it was the frequency. Even working in women’s health, I don’t think I fully appreciated how often women are just… dealing with hormonal side effects. When you really break it down, there’s maybe one week a month where something isn’t happening. Bleeding. Bloating. Mood shifts. The kind of low-grade irritability that makes you wonder if everyone else is being annoying or if it’s just you.

And then there’s ovulation cramps: a sensation I apparently unlocked in my late-thirties, just for fun.

Friends keep telling me I’ll be “that person” who gets pregnant naturally after years of infertility, and maybe I will. But honestly? I don’t know if I want to. Not just because our family feels complete, but because IVF, as brutal as it is, gave me something I never had before: predictability. Control, for lack of a better word. I have PGT-tested embryos in the freezer. I know the odds. I know the plan. Why would I trade that for the anxiety of rolling the biological dice and risking miscarriage?

This cycle doesn’t feel like a gift so much as a reminder: our bodies don’t always move on our timeline. Sometimes they show up late, sometimes they arrive when you’ve already closed the chapter, and sometimes they remind you just how much women are carrying, month after month.

xo,
Kristyn

🔍 Ask Clara: How many days of a “normal” menstrual cycle actually come with zero hormonal symptoms?