The 45 Project, part 12: Closure (for now)
Ever since I was a teenager, 45 has been the age that has loomed in my imagination as some kind of life-defining threshold. I don’t know what locked that number in my young mind, but over and over across the years, when making a hard decision or facing a painful truth or choosing the next step in my path, I have thought some version of: I don’t want to wake up one morning at 45 and realize I went the wrong way.
-from the 45 Project, part 1
Whenever I’m with someone who is celebrating their birthday, I find a quiet moment to ask them this question: what’s the biggest lesson you learned this year? There’s always the first moment of surprise, then a pause, and a sort of sitting back and settling in as you can almost see the person turn their attention inward and reflect on the question. Then they say something wise, powerful, poignant, funny, or interesting. There are so many different answers to the same question.
On Juneteenth I turned 46, and at dinner with Bear I said I hadn’t been able to think of my own answer to the question I always asked other people. I’d learned from the 45 Project that it was meaningful to share my writing, that it was good for my spirit to write regularly, but that didn’t seem to hit at the heart of things. I’d discovered nuances about the best strategies for my business right now. I’d found new ways to think about my dreams for my work. I’d learned things about tending to my own well-being. I’d seen more about the goodness and sweetness of my husband, who was even at that moment listening intently to what I had to say, as he always did. But what was THE lesson that 45 taught me? I thought for a while, and then I felt the lesson rise up, and I named it even as I adjusted to holding its weight: the things you care about the most, are the things you have the least control over.
The universe has been trying to teach me about control (and how little I have of it) and surrender (and how much I need to practice it) for a long time. Over and over, I think I learn my lesson: when you can’t do anything, open your hand and let it go — and when you think you’ve surrendered, surrender some more. But then I’m tested by something hard or scary and I again find myself grasping for control, holding on for dear life, trying to make things go the way I want by trying the most, working the hardest, having the strongest will. It always takes so much time and so much pain for me to arrive at the place where I can surrender. Relax. Let go. Accept. As Cheryl Strayed said:
“Most things will be okay eventually, but not everything will be. Sometimes you’ll put up a good fight and lose. Sometimes you’ll hold on really hard and realize there is no choice but to let go. Acceptance is a small, quiet room.”
This is one of those moments when nothing is left to me but surrender.
I’m not a mom yet. I thought 45 was going to be the year, but it wasn’t. I am one of the legions of women on the silent and secret and long journey to motherhood that is not a straight line, facing the stops and starts and ups and downs and small indignities and large heartbreaks that come with the territory. The things you care about the most, are the things you have the least control over. So what is there to do? Turn inward, assess my own values and my own energy and my own dreams and my own well-being, and keep walking the crooked path. Maybe I’ll write to you again from further down the road.
Either way, here it is: 46. The 45 Project has reached its natural end. What did my reflections show me? I married the right man for me. I live in the right place for me. I’m doing the right work, for myself. I’ve walked through many valleys and come out the other side into the sun, and I’ll do it again. I’ve learned. I’ve reflected. I’ve changed in ways I never thought I would, and some things have stayed stubbornly the same. I’ve worked on myself like it was a part-time job. There are things I’m still working on, and probably will always be working on. But I think I could look at my 16-year-old self — who was so worried about “waking up one morning at 45” and discovering some bad choices — and tell her that we did good.
This is the last piece of a monthly series, The 45 Project, reflecting on my first 45 years — find the other installments here.
