Lesley Ware’s major life transition, Bumble success story, and fashion as self-care

The New York writer and fashion icon shares a very real slice of life as a newlywed during the COVID-19 pandemic

“How does one be happy, hurting, growing, and healing simultaneously?”

Good question, right? These are the jumbles that Lesley Ware, now 42, started working through when she turned 40. At the time, the author and educator was going through what she describes as a “major life transition”. Lesley was recently separated and starting therapy to work through issues she’d been grappling with for a few months, including splitting with her partner of 10 years, money anxiety, and much-needed fibroid surgery.

But Lesley was also celebrating falling in love again, with her now-husband, comedian and television producer Victor Varnado. “It was gutting to mourn a relationship of many years while starting a new one,” she says from home in Ridgewood, Queens. “When my ex-husband and I parted ways, for the first few months, I was in bad shape mentally and physically.”

Now, as a newlywed, the pandemic hasn’t exactly been the most romantic backdrop to a new relationship. “Being in quarantine as a newlywed is strange,” she says. “My husband and I are both dealing with all our emotions about being locked inside, working from home with no…