The Cupcake Tax
The Cupcake Tax
I never minded being "the nice lady who makes amazing cupcakes."
Genuinely. I liked being good at it. I liked being the one people could count on.
Then someone asked, "Would you be so kind as to make cupcakes?" — and this time, standing there, something shifted. Not because I minded the ask. Because I finally heard it properly.
Is this it? Is this the legacy?
Fifty-odd years on this earth. Decades of experience. A whole person in here. And the thing I was known for was being endlessly available to do the nice, small, unpaid things while everyone else got on with the important stuff. Surely, I had more to offer the world than being the reliable one with the cupcake box!
Around the same time, perimenopause was hitting me hard. After being referred to one of the top endocrinologists in Sydney, I was excited to finally get some information and help — with symptoms ranging from mildly annoying to "am I losing my mind?" I walked in, sat down, hopeful. Ten minutes later I left with a script, a $500 bill, and a face as long as a wet week. My symptoms, my feelings, my fears — filed under "fair, fat, and fifty" instead of actually looked at.
And then my daughter Vicki got engaged. One of the proudest moments of my life. I was going to be Mother of the Bride.
And then it hit me. I didn't want to be hiding in the back of the photos, ashamed of how I looked and who I'd become. I wanted to be right in the middle of them, showing the world how utterly proud I was to be part of my daughter's Big Day.
That's when the real thought landed, and it hasn't left since: I didn't want to be invisible anymore. Not to my grandson, not to whatever adventures were still ahead of me, and — most of all — not to myself. I wanted to be seen. Really seen. Not the reliable one hovering at the edge of the photo, but a woman fully in the frame, fully in her own life.
Cupcakes. The specialist. Vicki's ring. Three completely different moments — but all of them quietly pointing at the same invisible woman. The one who'd been so busy being available for everyone else's important moments that she'd forgotten to have any energy left for her own.
I made myself a promise. A year to find my own source of truth, and a year to do something about it!
2025 was for research — digging into the why behind how I felt, instead of settling for the first answer I was handed. Reading the studies. Asking the questions nobody wanted to sit through. Collecting the data on what was actually happening to women like me, at this age, in this body, in this life full of other people's important things.
By the end of 2025, I wasn't just done researching. I was buzzing. A wedding on the calendar. A grandson who'd stolen my whole heart, and another grandchild on the way. A whole lot of current knowledge on nutrition, midlife bodies, and minds that had been quietly falling apart without anyone telling us why. For the first time in years, I actually felt like I was back in the driver's seat of my own life.
2026 wasn't a plan anymore. It was a launchpad.
Radiance Reset came out of that promise. It's not a fix, because I was never broken. It's what
happens when a woman who was always capable of more finally decides to prove it — starting with herself.
The Radiance Diaries are simply a place to share the moments that make me stop and think. The little things that often turn out to be the big things.
Starting with cupcakes. Because if you've ever been the reliable one wondering if there's more to you than that — you already know exactly what I mean.
The cupcake tax of being invisible is a price way too high for anyone to have to pay.
If you’d like to share your thoughts, tell me about a cupcake tax you’ve paid, or become part of the Radiance Room – feel free to contact me at hello@wendylipski.com