TN10: Angel James, Storyteller and Content Creator

Age: 51

Basic bio: Angel James is a former TV news producer who now runs a social media content creation business. She’s an empty-nesting, 80s-music-loving, midlife “crisis-ing” mom, who in the last year: Sent her son to college, sold her house, gave away just about everything in it, moved across the country, and started over in the NYC area.

Beyond the bio: For most of my life, I based my value on my productivity. When I quit TV news, my son asked me, “Who will you BE if you quit TV?” That hit me hard. TV news is what I did. Not who I am. I lost my sister this year. What I’ve learned is you should work to live, not live to work.

What makes you a grown-ass lady? I no longer need validation from others. Validation is for parking.

Here’s her TueNight 10:

1. On the nightstand: A book. Always a book. Mostly, historical fiction.

2. Can’t stop/won’t stop: Being exactly who I am.

3. Jam of the minute: “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears.

4. Thing I miss: Rom-coms.

5. '80s crush: Ralph Macchio in The Karate Kid and Glenn Scarpelli in One Day at a Time.

6. Current crush: I’d have to say Jeff Goldblum, because I've met him and he's as nice in person as you would imagine.

7. Latest fav find: This Top Gun Maverick tee and this dress that ties at my stomach pooch! :)

8. Last thing you lost: Deciding to move to the East Coast at age 50 left a lot of people thinking I’d lost my mind.

9. Best thing that happened recently: Being with my son, who just finished his first year at college.

10. Looking forward to: Finding myself. To quote Emily McDowell, “You are not a ten-dollar bill in last winter's coat pocket. You are not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people’s opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. ‘Finding yourself’ is actually returning to yourself. An unlearning, an excavation, a remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you.”