Hi! I'm an award-winning writer of fiction, non-fiction, and endless iterations of marketing copy for clients and employers. But what I love most is writing about history. Specifically, little-known royal women and their jewels.

You may be thinking, “Really? The world is going to hell in a handbasket, and you want to spend your time writing about dead rich white people and a few hunks of carbon?”

I do, and I’ll tell you why.

The world today is a scary place. I am terrified about what we’re doing to ourselves and each other and our planet. If I let all that doubt and fear into my head, I mean really let it in, I’d go crazy. These women and their stories are my refuge.

I am not one of those people who have their lives together. I’m kind of a klutz. I am so socially awkward that my DNA should be weaponized and used to keep terrorist cells from ever communicating with each other again. I barely make a living at the only thing I’ve ever been good at. That’s why these women are so amazing to me.

Take Grand Duchess Hilda of Baden, for example. She survived two world wars, a revolution, an Allied bombing raid, and a mother-in-law with a tendency to bogart the spotlight. She never got the only thing she ever wanted—children, to create a loving family circle of her very own. Through it all, she never complained. I complain all the freaking time. Clearly, I need some of what she’s got.

What kept her going when the world she knew collapsed around her? And who stole her tiara? It wasn’t me, in case you were wondering.

Her niece, Crown Princess Antonia of Bavaria, wasn’t so lucky.

Antonia had to wait years to marry the man she loved, Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, because of what the German army had done to her country, Luxembourg, during World War I. She persevered and they lived happily ever after, right? Nope. She barely survived a Nazi prison hospital during World War II. The experience broke her, physically and mentally. Turns out that even a tiara can’t save you when Hitler has your number.

In all seriousness, I’ve learned more about patience, grace, and grit from these royal women than from any novel or self-help book I’ve ever read. We need more stories about real women who dealt with world wars, regime change, and technological innovation with aplomb.

Yes, I said aplomb.

If they did it, we can, too, right?

Plus, in a very selfish form of schadenfreude, remember this: no matter how bad your day was, most of these women went through something much worse. I worry about paying bills and whether I’ll ever be able to retire. I did not get shot in the arm while fleeing revolutionaries, like Princess Irene of Prussia. My family did not get sent to a concentration camp, like Princess Antonia’s. My husband doesn’t beat the tar out of me, like Princess Augusta of Brunswick. And no one threw me down a mineshaft like they did to Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna.

It’s good to keep perspective. It’s good to learn how to survive. History helps me do that. Maybe it can help you, too.