Silhouette of a young woman's profile with the words "Unwritten Self" overlaid.

Essays on cancer, identity, divorce, and the complicated freedom of starting over.

Unwritten Self is a personal storytelling blog about midlife reinvention. I write from lived experience—surviving ovarian cancer, navigating divorce after 25 years, and coming to terms with my identity as an intersex woman with Swyer syndrome. I’m also an adoptee, a mother, and someone who’s had to rebuild more than once. These essays are where I untangle it all: identity, illness, family, grief, and choosing yourself after crisis.

Carol A. Tiernan Carol A. Tiernan

Good Catholic Kids

On this, my parent’s wedding anniversary, I’m left with a mix of contemplation, sadness, and love. These are the roots I’ve come from—the ones that still shape me as I try to make sense of my own story, my unwritten self.

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Carol A. Tiernan Carol A. Tiernan

Midlife and the Unwritten Self

Lately, I’ve been standing at the edge of something new. There’s a shift in the air, something I can feel in my bones, though I can’t quite name it yet. It’s a time in my life that feels both mystifying and inevitable—a point where the past no longer holds, and the future is still unwritten.

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