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  I dedicate this book to the two most important women in my life:

  my mother, Diane Cinkala, and my daughter, Hannah Lynch.

  At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.

  —FRIDA KAHLO

  INTRODUCTION

  If I could go back in time and give some advice to the young girl from Great Barrington, Massachusetts, who climbed trees so that she could carve out a place of her own and think, away from her two brothers and sister and the surveillance of her mother, I would tell her to stop worrying about the destination and trust in the journey. To not be afraid of falling short or taking a misstep and to embrace life as it happens. I would tell her that a person is shaped as much by their failures as they are by their successes.

  Yes—that girl is me. When I was young, I would look out from the treetops and imagine what the world looked like beyond the bubble of my home. I had no idea what was out there. All I knew was that I had to see it.

  It’s funny that, right now, I am writing a book about my life in the same Great Barrington, a town I so desperately wanted to venture beyond. I spent my early life devising ways to leave this small town in the Berkshires. And then, after many years of adulting life, I tried my hardest to figure out how to return home.

  As a young girl I used to idolize a house on a hill that was a mile from our home. It seemed so far out of reach. Well, somehow, many years later, I now find myself owning this home. What had once seemed out of reach was now mine. Sometimes, when I look out the window, I think, How the hell did I get here?

  I’ve spent the last forty years in many places: Great Barrington, New York, Hong Kong, Australia, Paris, Vienna, Germany, London. During this time, I’ve created successful businesses and taken pride in my work, be it as a Liz Claiborne associate, an aerobics instructor, a cashmere designer, a real estate agent, a mother, or a housewife (for both my own family and later my Bravo family). I have had great loves in my life that didn’t turn out the way I expected. I never imagined I would end up a divorcée or a widow when I got married, but now I can say that I’m glad for both of these experiences. My first husband and I didn’t make it, but together we raised an incredible daughter with the help of our new life partners. Ours is a family of stepparents and stepchildren whom we never referred to as “step.” What says it all is that my first husband was one of only a few people who were at my second husband’s bedside when he died.

  I’m going to quote my mother a lot in this book, because she is one of my greatest influences. She once told me that the most beautiful wines in the world are made from the grapes that struggle the most. Those grapes have thicker skin, and they might look a little more beat-up than the pretty grapes, but inside they have an incredibly rich juice. They’re perfectly imperfect, and that’s what makes them so delicious.

  For the majority of my life I was fearful of showing the imperfect sides of myself, of falling short of the “ideal,” of being a “bad” mother, wife, daughter, or friend. I believed perfection was the definition of success and that if I could be the best mother, the best wife, and the best daughter I would feel fulfilled. The problem with this, however, is that I left the best me out of that equation. I let myself be defined by other people’s opinions of me and found myself not knowing what I liked, wanted, or desired.

  Before I decided to join Bravo’s Real Housewives of New York City, I’m not sure I fully knew who I was beyond the roles I played for other people. I knew myself as Dorinda Cinkala, the daughter of John and Diane Cinkala. I knew myself as Dorinda Lynch, the wife of Ralph Lynch and the mother to Hannah Lynch. And I certainly knew myself as Mrs. Medley, the powerhouse wife of Dr. Richard Medley.

  But who was Dorinda?

  I was determined to find out. I was done wasting my time trying to please other people. I accepted that I was perfectly imperfect and I stopped needing everyone to like me. And the most amazing thing happened. I finally started to feel free.

  Anyone who has seen me on The Real Housewives probably knows that shiny façades do nothing for me. I want to know what’s really going on behind that façade. I gravitate toward people who show up authentically as themselves because that’s how I like to show up now—as myself.

  The decision to become a more authentic version of myself didn’t happen overnight. Old habits run deep. About a year after Richard died, I was asked to attend a lunch for the Council on Foreign Relations. When I got the invite I thought, Of course I need to go. This is important; this is prestigious; this is what I should be doing as a widow of Richard Medley.

  But I was miserable. For the first time I thought, This is not me anymore. This is not where I want to be. Don’t get me wrong, it was a gorgeous event, but it just wasn’t me anymore. So I left. I made the decision that in the future I would no longer do things that made me miserable.

  It was right around this time, just as I was settling into my skin in a new way, that I was approached to be a castmate on The Real Housewives of New York City. What better thing to do with my realness than be on reality television?

  It was strange that I became a Housewife right after I lost my husband. But in another way, it was perfect because it signaled independence at the exact moment I was stepping into my new resolve to live more selfishly. Being on The Housewives was the first time in my life that I did something that was just for me. I wasn’t Dorinda Cinkala anymore, or Dorinda Lynch, or Dorinda Medley. I was just Dorinda.

  At fifty-six, I finally feel I am living a life I have ownership over, a life that is the culmination of years of experiences, choices, and lessons, both good and bad. I understand myself in a much healthier and happier way. I’ve set myself up financially, I take care of myself physically and spiritually, and I’m surrounded by loving, smart, motivated, and kind people. I’m happy to be my age. Sure, it might be nice to wear a midriff and do cartwheels, but I’ve enjoyed the grace and the insight that have come with aging. I am my perfectly imperfect self. What all of this amounts to is a life filled with the capacity to explore, enjoy, entertain, and grow. I guess you could say I’ve made it nice!

  And now I want to tell you how you might do the same. Making it nice is not just about the outside stuff. It’s about making it through. It’s about getting knocked down and getting up again. It’s about surviving.

  Life is like hosting a dinner. It takes a lot of preparation. It doesn’t just happen. This book will be like me inviting you over hours before the party starts to see all the work that goes into creating the final product. I’m going to tell you how I’ve become a woman who’s learned to accept herself, flaws and all. And I’m going to tell you the real story of how I got here—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

  If you’re struggling, my hope is that after reading this you might have some new ideas about how to take ownership of your life, express yourself as an individual, lean into your sense of independence and self-worth, and embrace your journey, even if it seems imperfect. Starting is the hardest part of any journey. So, on that note, let’s get started!

  Life is like reading a book. You think you know how it’s going to end, but the final chapters often surprise you.

  Chapter One ON PAUSE

  In August of 2020, I was gearing up to start the next season of filming for The Real Housewives of New York Cit
y, just as I’d been doing for the previous six years. My life in those six years had taken on a new rhythm. For four months, while we filmed the show, I ate, drank, and lived The Housewives twenty-four hours a day. And then, for the rest of the year, I was making plans for the upcoming season. Participating in the show was a bit like the Olympics or opening night at the opera. You have to prepare yourself mentally for months before filming. You watch reruns. You think about what you want to showcase. You strategize. You arrange parties. You brainstorm places that would be fun to go as a group. And then, before you know it, it’s show time again.

  If you aren’t on a reality show, you’re probably not thinking about how to play a dramatic game of chess with your friends, but when you’re on reality television that’s exactly what you’re thinking. You’re like a military general in high heels, strategizing and attacking, perpetually reevaluating your situation and thinking about how to win. And in the world of reality television, the definition of “winning” is very different. If you’re too nice, your castmates will perceive you as being vulnerable. If you’re too mean, the world will.

  If you think the show is scripted, it’s not. You walk in never knowing what’s going to happen. You paste on a poker face of confidence, ready for the prospect that at any moment you could be blindsided. And you’ve got one shot to get it right, because there are no “redos” or “reshoots.” For all your planning, the strategy usually goes down the drain in the heat of the moment—which can result in what they call reality TV gold. Sometimes you come up with a zinger out of nowhere. I wasn’t thinking about how “not well, bitch” would become a phrase I could put on a mug when I first said it, for example. Sometimes you say something you never intended to say or even meant when you said it, but you have to go with it or else you’ll be eaten alive. Housewives are like sharks. They can smell blood in the water, so you better be sure not to bleed.

  Even when you apologize, there is often no space for it, no way for it to land securely in the way you might want. Sure, I can say I’m sorry and mean it when I say so, but that doesn’t mean that I know how it will be received or how it will be portrayed on the show. You can’t stop the boulder once it’s started rolling downhill. You just have to let it land where it lands and hope you don’t get squashed in the process.

  The goal of a reality TV show, and of any TV show, is to entertain, and a lot of the entertainment on The Housewives stems from conflict and interactions. Because, let’s face it, would you honestly watch the show if it were a documentary about a bunch of women sitting around at a dinner table being nice to one another? Of course not. That would not be very interesting. Reality television is empathetic escapism. For an hour, you get to live someone else’s life. Life is messy and complicated, and without the dirty details it wouldn’t be very relatable. When you film a reality TV show, you’re not looking for thoughtful responses from your audience; you’re looking for big reactions—the types of reactions that make you spit your beverage out of your mouth and jump to your feet.

  Ironically, for a reality TV show, filming the show enters you into a different type of reality. It has some semblance of the real world but in other aspects is totally removed. The process has a fun way of making your real life fade into the distance. There is no longer enough time for the people you love; there’s no longer any room for the things that make you you. For a brief period, you enter a parallel universe where the camera crew, the production staff, and your castmates become your whole world.

  The sudden stop that comes after filming is totally disorienting. It’s a bit like vertigo—the feeling of movement and spinning goes on even when you are standing in place. And the anxiety, don’t get me started on the anxiety! You’ve stated your case, and now the jury is out.

  The other thing is that if it doesn’t happen during the filming season, then it kind of doesn’t exist. A lot of times, what you don’t see is just as important as what you do. Scenes you thought were great sometimes get cut, and scenes you wish you could forget become the main focus. There is one characteristic that binds all the Housewives to one another, and that’s bravery. For a second, imagine what it would be like to have someone documenting everything you do and say, knowing that millions of people are going to judge you for it. You have to be fearless or you simply won’t make it.

  After filming, I do my best to leave my Housewives drama behind. I go back to my life as Dorinda Medley and as Hannah’s mom. I go on long walks with friends; I watch funny Instagram videos; I think about getting a dog and then decide against it; I leave the city and go back to Blue Stone Manor—my house in the Berkshires—and spend time with my parents. I’m not Dorinda the New York Housewife anymore. I’m Hannah’s mother, John and Diane Cinkala’s daughter, and a friend to my many friends. I’m me again.

  You don’t really forget about the show after you stop filming the season, but you do kind of put it in the back of your mind. There is no denying that in the quiet moments at the end of the day, when I was doing the dishes, or washing my face, or worst of all just lying in bed watching Law & Order, thoughts about the show would creep into my head. I’d find myself watching what we filmed play out on my bedroom ceiling, and I’d start thinking about what I could have done better. After filming, the questions you consider over and over are, Who will I be when this new season airs? What will my parents think? What will my daughter think? What will the world think?

  While the process can be stressful at times, the positive definitely outweighs the negative overall. Filming is fun and you laugh your ass off more often than you cry your eyes out. Taking the plunge into the outrageous is liberating because you are able to lean into the most exaggerated version of yourself. In the world of the Housewives, being uninhibited is a good thing and social niceties fall out of the window—which is great for me because I hate small talk. There’s a lot of joy that comes with being on reality television. It’s fun and exciting and I always felt lucky to be a part of it. It takes a village to raise a child, as they say, and it takes an even bigger one to make a season of The Real Housewives of New York City. It’s an intense experience for everyone involved, and the crew and producers become your lifeline. They’re the only people who understand exactly what you’re going through. It’s like a family or a sorority.

  So, back to 2020. As I was gearing up to film Season 13, everything that had happened in Season 12 was on my mind. Honestly, watching Season 12 unfold was a lot. To some degree, I had expected this, because the reality was that I’d had a rough year. I broke my rib. My father got sick. My house flooded. All the remnants of my life with Richard were floating in our basement. As I watched the dump trucks take it all away, I felt like I was right back to where I had been ten years before. It wasn’t just that he was gone. It was that our life was gone. It was like a big aquatic monster had broken into my house. We had to put major holes in the walls and use extraction heaters to dry out the house. There were cracks in the plaster and paint peeling from the walls. Our house, meaning mine and Richard’s, was ruined. The last time I had renovated this house was with Richard, and for years I took comfort in being surrounded by the decisions we made—and now all of that was literally falling apart before my eyes. I had to redo the home we made together, only this time I had to do it alone. I just remember crying so hard to my mother and thinking, I can’t fall apart; I have to fix everything by the time filming starts. I have to get it done for our seasonal Berzerkshires episode.

  Instead of giving in to my sadness, I picked myself up again. I took the flood as a sign that I needed to let go of my old life, to begin anew. It was time and I knew it, but that didn’t make it any less painful. I ended my relationship with my then-boyfriend, John. The hardest decisions are almost always the right decisions, and although we loved each other, I realized it just wasn’t meant to be a relationship that lasted for the long term. It was wonderful for a while, and then it was meant to end. We broke up because it was time for me to move forward and I needed to do that on my own. I
still care about John a lot, and he will always have a seat at my table.

  I got the house done in time for the show, but when we started filming I wasn’t in a great place, and that definitely came through in Season 12. Because of my brutal honesty and the fact that I’m always willing to fight, I’m often a somewhat villainous character. This season, though, it was more intense. I remember saying to a friend, “This was not my best season, but next season will be better.”

  And then I got the call from production.

  “Hi, Dorinda, we’re going to take a pause. We want you to take a year off and really enjoy your time and then we’ll revisit this next year.”

  I was shocked. “What? I don’t want to take a pause.”

  But they insisted. “No, no, we’re going to take a pause.”

  I just couldn’t believe it. Wasn’t I a beloved character? Weren’t my ratings high? Didn’t I have a ton of Instagram followers? To a normal person, all this might sound unimportant, but in the land of reality television these are measures of success. In this land, numbers count. Social engagement counts. Fans count.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. I was in tears.

  The production company reiterated what they’d already told me. The conversation was going nowhere and I was too emotional to continue, so I got off the phone.

  A few minutes later, Andy Cohen called. He said many warm things to me. He told me I was iconic and reminded me that it wasn’t necessarily good-bye forever. It was just a pause.

  I didn’t understand this word. Pause? If Bravo wasn’t going to extend an offer for the following season, wasn’t that like being let go? Wasn’t it like being fired? And if I was being fired, then why were we using the word “pause”?

  As I mentioned before, I’m not into façades. I don’t like sugarcoating things. I just don’t understand it. If I’m wearing a white shirt and somebody tells me they love my pink shirt, what am I going to say? I’m not going to say, “Thank you.” I’m going to say, “Thank you, but it’s a white shirt.”