Reading · 40 and Giving Zero F's

I’m turning 41. And compared to 40, it feels fairly anticlimactic.

No, I’m not going to rebrand to “41 and Giving Zero F’s.” But I do think it’s time to share the origin story behind this newsletter’s name.

And it starts with a thong bikini.

Not mine, at least not at first.

It was a fictional thong bikini. A black one, given to a woman for her 40th birthday by a friend trying to push her out of her comfort zone.

This was the opening scene of a novel I was starting to write. The main character was a strong-willed, independent woman with red hair and a curvy figure. Sound familiar? My friends who’ve read my novels will tell you I’m incapable of writing a female main character who isn’t basically… me.

In the opening scene, she unwraps the thong bikini from a friend before a girls’ trip to Punta Cana. The logic: they’d be thousands of miles from home, surrounded by strangers, so what better time to do something bold?

But at the last minute, the friend cancels the trip. And instead of staying home, the main character goes alone. Turning 40 becomes the thing that finally pushes her to stop caring so much about what other people think. So she starts what she calls “The Zero Fucks List.”

First item: take a vacation by yourself.

Second item: wear the thong bikini anyway.

The premise was simple: a newly 40-year-old woman working her way through a list of things she no longer gave a fuck about.

And here’s the ironic part: I couldn’t get past the beginning. Which was odd, because it’s not like I’ve never finished a novel before. I’ve drafted two.

No, the issue was that this one felt a little too… biographical.

As I tried to write the main character’s journey of discovering herself, I realized I was really writing about me. And I was struggling to pretend otherwise.

We go to the Outer Banks every August. We rent a house with another family, and despite the chaos of having five kids under one roof (our two and their three), I always do some of my best writing at the beach.

Walking along the shore is my favorite way to untangle sticky plot points or brainstorm scenes. And that week, I walked up and down the beach over and over again, trying to figure out how to turn “The Zero F’s List” into a cohesive novel without it basically just becoming my story.

And then I had the lightbulb moment: what if I just told my story?

But instead of a novel, what if I wrote little essays? What if I joined all the cool kids and started a Substack?

I could write about confidence, comfort zones, saying yes, saying no, and all the funny, meaningful stories that happen when you start becoming more yourself.

When it came time to name the newsletter, the choice felt obvious: “40 and Giving Zero F’s.”

And here we are.

I thought I was writing a story about a woman who stopped caring what people thought.

But the truth is, I was just circling my own story.

Because at some point, you don’t need a character to try things on for you.

You just do it yourself.

Which is how I ended up in Puerto Rico at 40, wearing the same thong bikini I previously wrote about.