"Life catches us."

Haunting words...

I’ll explain later.

Transformation Tuesday always finds me thinking about all kinds of change. Big, small, good, bad…temporary, permanent, wanted or imposed on us…

Oh, who am I kidding?

I’m thinking about change all the time. Not just every fifth Tuesday. 🤦🏼‍♀️

I mean, change *is* all around us.

And how we react and respond to the changes drives our own transformation. So I might as well think about it and try to get the most out of things. Right?

One thing I’ve been thinking more specifically about is what happens when we are involuntarily transformed…notably by someone else’s involuntary transformation.

Foe example, sadly, we all love someone—or love someone who loves someone—who is battling or has lost the fight with a terminal disease.

And when it happens, we’re devastated, sympathetic, empathetic, supportive, avoidant, communicative, whatever…all at once, alternatively, sporadically, however…all of it.

That’s life. And it sucks.

What prompts this that a few weekends ago I had two discussions about this ultimate transformation—death and dying—with friends who were dealing with terminal diagnoses of loved ones. ❤️‍🩹

From those exchanges, in that context, I was reminded of three important things about living:

1. Attitude really is everything. Even when you’ve been dealt a shitty hand you can bluff your way to big winnings. As Kenny sang, “you gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em.”

2. Keep the important connections in your life active. In other words, make the call, send the text, pop a card in the mail. If the person lives close enough, get a date on the calendar and spend some time together IRL. We need to keep our souls connected to those we love if we expect to thrive.

3. Remember that people are going through it. There’s always room for empathy. This doesn’t mean avoiding hard stuff or giving people free passes, but it does mean giving things the appropriate context and the appropriate weight. Sometimes, some people and things mean more than others. And that’s ok.

Beyond these reminders, my wheels started really turning (burning rubber, TBH) when I received a text message that contained, in part, this three-word sentence: “Life catches us.”

It gave me goosebumps when I read it, has haunted me since, and gave me a fresh set of chills when I typed the three words just now.

“Life catches us.”

Not “Death catches us.”

“Life catches us.”

Ultimately, each of us is in a race of unknown distance or duration that we will not win.

Or will we?

Depends on how you define “winning.” Right?

So, rather than get caught up in trying to define it, trying to figure out whether I’m winning or losing (and then whether I am in turn a winner or a loser), I focus on simplifying by keeping these three things in mind:

1. I’m not racing against anyone else. So, I care appropriately about how other people are faring in their own races, relative to their own goals—and I try to care as little as possible about how they are faring relative to me (and vice versa), because that comparison is—and always will be—irrelevant and immaterial. (Spoiler alert: it’s not a zero-sum game!)

2. It’s all about this leg. Since I don’t know the duration or distance of said race, I choose to forget about the race itself (for the most part and to the extent possible, recognizing that context matters) and focus only on the leg I’m on. Quality leg? Yay. Shitty leg? A new one (likely) awaits. No leg but this leg.

3. Beware the rearview. Usually, I save what I’m listening to for my Wednesday post, and in my last one I mentioned that we started Season 3 of Shrinking and that the soundtrack is fantastic. Today I *have* to mention this particular song, as it’s an important part of things. Without spilling any plot points, there’s a storyline in one of the episodes that features the REM song “Nightswimming,” only it’s sung by one of the show’s stars, Jason Segal (who plays Jimmy). Now, this is a song that was already on my Top 100 songs list (of almost 150 songs 🤦‍♀️🤣), but there was something about this version that shook me. I mean, there was the point the song was making in the show, which was a very “big feelings” moment for me…and then there was the rest of it…something about Segal’s tone and inflection, the way it called my attention to certain words and phrases. Or maybe it was because it sounded different that I paid closer attention to it…like I was hearing it for the first time. But it was probably a combination of all those things, the scene it was showcased in coupled with the scene that is my life right now…amplified by the fact that it’s a great song. Anyhow, it’s about nostalgia and reflection, which is different than staring longingly in the rearview, ruminating:

   The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago
   Turned around backwards so the windshield shows
   Every street light reveals a picture in reverse
   Still it's so much clearer

   Long story short, if you’re looking over your shoulder, you’re more likely to trip, fall into a sinkhole, run into a wall, get hit by a train, fall off a cliff, or meet some other unpleasant end. So keep your eyes ahead with an awareness of and appreciation for that which is behind and beside you…because the picture in reverse is often so much clearer…and those details can reveal clues that will help you navigate the path forward.

There’s an old aphorism about the life in your years vs the years in your life, and it really is all about the life in the years. Well, the days, really. When we break it down into manageable chunks, it all seems so much more, well, manageable.

So how this is playing out for me specifically right now is this: family dynamics are tricky for me, which I alluded to it last week. My two sisters and I were together with my mom in FL, and don’t get me wrong—it was great. So great.

But I also feel like—no matter my best intentions, despite my most motivating self-talk—there are some circumstances and situations that find me unable to cast aside my old baggage. And while I didn’t come here today to dump the filthy contents of my overflowing personal steamer trunk onto your lap, I’d be remiss not to address them, though in brief. (Because the truth is that’s an entirely other matter, an epic tale to rival The Iliad, The Odyssey, or The Fountainhead in length, minus the cool characters and gripping plots.)

The long and short of it is this: when I’m with my two successful sisters and we meet countless well-meaning strangers, I can be immediately overrun with feelings of inadequacy.

I have no kids. No wildly successful career as a (whatever). None of the standard measures of success. 🤦🏼‍♀️

And I can get really—quickly and easily—bogged down by that.

Even though I have a happier home life than I ever could have imagined, and even though I am childless by choice, and even though I never actually pursued a specific career (my career path was more momentum than machination), I can still get so twisted and tangled in the weeds of expectation.

And then when I finally manage to untangle myself from those, it’s like I never learn—and I get tangled in the weeds of frustration with myself that I let myself feel inadequate in the first place.

It’s a very vicious cycle which distracts me from this leg of the race.

So since I have been back from my trip, I’ve been thinking about how all this stuff adds up, how ultimately it well tell the story of *my* performance.

And it hit me: even if I don’t go about things in the way that someone else might have expected—or that I might have expected of myself at one time or another—I must have done something right. Because, as previously noted, I have a happier home life than I ever would have thought possible, and I did well enough that I can kind of afford to not work now and enjoy and appreciate my life in a way that I couldn’t/didn’t/didn’t think I deserved for a large chunk of it. (Though I have an appointment with my financial planner at 10:30 today, so I well may amend that last statement and be working at Trader Joe’s by this time next week.) Bottom line: I’m fine. I’m better than fine. I’m good. It’s all good. It’s great, really. Really.

So this is a long-winded way of saying this: Life does catch us. But that does not mean we have to admit defeat along the way. We have so many chances to “win”. And while we don’t control when the race ends, we do get to write the story about it unfolds. About how we trained, the people we trained with…how we learned from the good and the bad days…about the awesome playlist we meticulously curated to keep us going, and how we belly laughed in spite of it all.

That’s what it’s all about. No matter what, life catches us. So, we might as well think about it less as a race, more of a fun game of tag, and—in a manner of speaking—run around the neighborhood with friends, shrieking with joy.

Maybe I overthink it, but I think I’d prefer that to not thinking about it enough. Yeah, occasionally it bogs me down. But more often than not it helps me to a) appreciate it all and b) try to be a better human.

It helps to remember that I can only worry about myself, though I *can* care about others.

And I care about you, so much. I also thank you for your time here, as always—it means the world.

Oh, and about that picture at the top. I finally got back to my favorite walking spot on Friday (I think for the first time since mid-December, thanks to all the weather) when this other song that always haunts me came on my playlist. So, when I saw an actual field of gold, I had to take a picture of it.

And speaking of pictures, yesterday I walked in the cold (like not realizing I could have used my heated gloves), in a snow squall (which you can see in the pic—and I’m not even gonna get into the dusting on the ground we woke up to here this motning but Happy Spring 🤦🏼‍♀️)…and it was, as *they* say, “a real kick in the balls”…until I saw a very welcome—albeit out of place for this time of year—sight:

Somebody must think the world needs this. I know I did.

You.

Are.

Awesome.

Love you too.

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