What I learned in 2024
A friend who has twenty years on me once said, “When you get older, you don’t see life getting longer, stretching out in front of you like a road, so much – but it sure gets wider.” This year I finally “got” the concept. It was a year crammed full of events and connections and even long, contemplative somewhat lusciously boring days. Some knuckle-biting excitement and moments of real despair. Talk about “eternity in an hour”. If the rest of my years are this packed with events and consciousness, I’m going to live forever.
This year I dropped my youngest off at college for the first time (and several more times after that!), spent a month traveling around Great Britain alone, finished the third draft of my novel and started the fourth, taught four artistic residencies in local elementary and high schools, taught writing to adults at night, spent a couple of weeks on the east coast visiting friends, hosted a playwright working with my husband on an original play, volunteered for Harris, built houses in Tijuana, mentored young writers, started a somewhat regular yoga and meditation practice, and attempted to get somewhat literate about money. There’s more, but those are the bones. With all that in mind, here’s my annual list of some of the things I learned:
1. There are soo sooo sooo many battles I really don’t have to fight. What a damn relief. A rather counter-intuitive joy that attends the invisibility of being over sixty is that no one cares that much what you think in the first place. I cannot emphasize enough, the joy of holding a completely mind-blowing subversive thought to myself – especially at dinner parties. It makes me feel sneaky and dangerous and powerful. If I were so inclined, this would be the time to start my life in crime.
2. I don’t need more sweaters, but I DO need more food containers.
3. Amazon is the devil and we – even committed lefties -- are too dependent to do a thing about it. Look, my fellow liberals, we have to get real about this. Sure, we boycotted the Washington Post when they didn’t endorse a candidate, but don’t take my Prime. There are more accidents on the road because of drivers’ long shifts, the packing material and all that driving is killing the planet, workers are milled through insane hours and low wages and don’t have a functioning union, Bezos is king, and returns are mostly scrapped – I beg you to watch the documentary “Buy Now” about the insidiousness of how the immediacy of getting what you want in an instant affects our brains and spending habits. Because I am one of those who is dependent, I am waiting until January to pull the plug. But pull the plug I will – and don’t come to me with your virtue signaling over various boycotts until you do too.
4. “How can I help?” is the single most important question anyone can ever ask.
5. Use the last bit of whatever your using – the last three green beans, the quarter cup of quinoa, the four raspberries. One day I will have an epiphany about why I save these little bits that simply rot. But before that big day, I need to simply add them to the current dish, omelet, whatever.
6. I used to believe that I was so incredibly kind and thoughtful that who on earth could find fault with me? It took me sixty-four years – maybe sixty if you round down for sentience – to discover that all the twisty, self-denying, knee-jerk, mitigating actions I take on a daily basis in order to please people so that they will fucking love me, doesn’t work. All of that – all of my twisty, self-denying, knee-jerk, and mitigating actions only annoy those who love me. Unless I’m buying gifts. Then it does work. And frankly, I understand that because it’s direct. Nine times out of ten, the people I love have no idea that I’m doing my people-pleasing highwire act, they just think I’m fussing. But gifts are simple. You see them. You get the point. People smile and say thanks and we move on.
Corollary to the above: Still learning to let my children be sad or disappointed without swooping in with a bunch of stupid, annoying fixes.
7. Pistachios go well with beets and goat cheese. This might be the most actionable thing on my list.
8. I learned where Nicaragua really is. I thought it was in South America. For someone who travels, I’m shockingly terrible at geography.
9. I read a book this year that mentioned things/objects being spiritual avatars. I’ve always hung onto little items in weird places. There’s a small glass duck in the pocket of one of my sweaters. I’ve forgotten where I got it. But it’s always there, always somewhat a surprise, and it makes me feel connected to past moments in my life. These objects are almost these little symbols of my having been here. Of my having had a past, even if I can’t remember it all. I like thinking about a thing connecting me to the more expansive me – it also, weirdly enough, helps me let things go. Because I can recognize that it’s the feeling I’m after, not the thing. So I am both hanging onto stuff and letting it go. Losing and breaking things becomes a time to internalize a memory rather than externalize it, if that makes sense.
10. All through my mother’s life, she would say, “Remember, we are all in this alone.” Whenever I told people this, I would joke, “And she meant that to be comforting.” But I am just beginning to realize why it’s actually a comforting thought. It is this. As I teach people who are quite a bit younger than me, I see that everyone wants to be seen and known – really known, deeply. And I think that there’s a lot of frustration when people get us wrong. When they mischaracterize us or barely see us at all. Certainly, I have felt that frustration. Hell, more than frustration. Deep anger sometimes, and anguish. How could that person possibly think that I--------------------(fill in the blank). But I am beginning to realize how very little we actually know of each other. After my mother died, I found some of her diaries and I read about how deeply afraid she was of losing her mind (she lost most of it by the time she died). I did not know how conscious she was of her own decline. And frankly, as her daughter, I’m glad I didn’t. There was a vast unknowable universe inside my mother, as there is inside all of us. Rather than causing me pain, that makes me think: wow, what else was in there? Maybe, as she was dying, she was surrounded by all these stories and images – the room she lived in as an undergrad, the men she dated, entire years I know nothing about – maybe she was held by all of it. By the life she led and none of us living knew much about.
Knowing that I am alone, that I am cosmically unknowable because we all are, is a huge invitation for me to know myself better. I know this is toe-dipping into some white, middle-aged lady spiritualism here. I’m clearly not going to write a self-help book because I can’t get it into a pithy, easy aphorism. Here’s my best shot: Knowing that I am unknowable, allows me to forgive people for getting me wrong. And makes me my own discoverer of myself. By the way, you’ll have to take my word for it – I’m pretty damn fascinating.
Corollary: Knowing that people are unknowable really takes the stress out of hanging with adult children who seriously both want you to know everything about them and nothing at the same time.
11. I just found out who Mel Robbins is. I like her glasses. And I’m sure she’s perfectly lovely. But if you’re discovering to simply “let them” in your fifties, you had a hugely stressful few decades. Just saying. And good on ya for not letting another decade whiz by, worrying about what others are doing and thinking. Oy.
12. After disengaging from the news after the election, I find I don’t really need it. This from a former news junkie. I still read the top stories during the day. But I no longer need fifteen takes on the story. Goodbye punditry! Whew.
13. I’ve learned to embrace my lack of interest in technology rather than be shamed by it. I understand the benefit of being able to do basic things on the computer and my phone. But beyond that, I’d rather spend my time diving into the vast internal universe, which is myself. Unknowable, subversive, and kinda sexy. Hey, nobody here but me!
That’s a sloppy and incomplete list. But it’s honest. And at the very least, I endeavor to be that.
