Countdown to 50: Day 4

How friend Shelagh addressed my birthday package! 

My forties began in Scotland -- the trip a gift from my mother -- and from there they were a ten-year adventure. And as with all adventures, not everything was smooth sailing; there were rocky paths as well as easy valleys. I won't flog those metaphors; you get my drift. It's the same for you: Ten years is a long mix of joy and sorrow, happiness and grief, successes and failures, epiphanies that are both liberating and exhausting. 

It was a good decade for me, in part because I finally published a book, but it was a terrible decade for Dwayne. Over the past ten years, he was plagued by health problems, like a debilitating shoulder injury and a stroke, but also by sometimes-ugly family issues. His was a decade of loss and letting go, of adapting and accepting, none of which he did well. I will say, however, he remained my steadfast, devoted and generous husband so we weathered the adventure, with its ups and downs, its challenging terrain and lovely rests together. 

Most of what happens to us is a learning experience, and there were many in the past decade. I want to share one of them: What I learned from living with the unluckiest person I've ever known is that my creative energy is drained by other people's bullshit. Not so much by Dwayne's health crises, those I can take in stride -- partly because he is so stoic, it's hard to get caught up in something you're shut out of -- but by other people being selfish and dramatic. 

I'm sorry I allowed any of it to affect me so significantly, but from it, I learned to guard my creative energy. I learned to say "STOP" to myself, to my brain, whenever the wrong thoughts were taking over a walk or a yoga practice or the middle of the night. 

Of course we get sidetracked by the drama. We take to heart the personal attack, the nasty comment, the lies and manipulation, but then we need to take breath, go for a walk, talk to a friend, and say, "It's not me. It's her/him. This is more about that person than it is about me." I learned to acknowledge the feelings and to put the situation back on the other person. Because to dwell on the hurts, on the disappointments, on the frustrations just distracts from what is really important. And for me, it's writing. 

I think this is why I prefer to write intensively: To throw myself into a project every day, all day for three or four months. Being wrapped up in a project, being consumed by a story creates a barrier. This hit home when I was writing my novel because someone tried to create a crisis out of nothing one afternoon and after ranting about it for a while, I just went back to work and forgot all about it. My creative energy and the unquenchable flow of it is more essential and more life-sustaining than anyone else's drama. 

As I head into my fifties tomorrow, into a new decade, I feel more like a writer than I ever have. I feel more in control of my writing life and my creativity (despite the long-term uncertainty caused by the pandemic) and as a result, more protective of it, more capable of protecting it. Twice today, talking with two friends on the phone, I said I wasn't ready to leave my forties because I feel like I'm still learning, that if I move into my fifties, I have to start applying everything I've learned but I'm half-joking. 

I'm ready. I'm old enough (sigh) to pull on my big girl panties and be a woman in the prime of her life.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Never. It'll always be more enthusiasm than skill, more laughter than tears, more sweet than sour. I'll be 29 forever! 

There is something to be said, however, about the psychological effect of a new decade, of new possibilities, of the potential that comes from being wiser, calmer (but no less energetic!), and too old for anything but courage and confidence.