Hearing this story I wondered if “there” is what I want or what I think I should want. If I believe in Eckhart Tolle’s line about manifesting–
“Who are you to think that you know what you want?” –then I don’t even know where my “there” is.
I am incredibly privileged and I could fill dozens of emails with how fortunate I’ve been with opportunities because of my unearned advantages. Some goals I wish for will not happen; maybe I will stop desiring them or maybe I’ll yearn for them until I die--either way is okay. To want for nothing seems great, but anticipation, longing, and yearning are what makes us keep creating and moving.
Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy said in a conversation with George Saunders, that when he turned 50 he wrote his memoir and, almost immediately after, another book about songwriting and soon after that a new album. When he told his father about this productivity, his father responded, “My 50s were my most productive decade.”
I find stories of people still making things at different ages comforting. My yoga teacher always said, “when you stop moving, things stop working.” I think that’s true physically and emotionally…it doesn’t matter how well or how fast, just stay in motion.
In gym class when we had to run the mile, there were the kids who breezed in around 6 minutes, normal paced kids, those walking winded with their hands on top of their heads with a side cramp, then there was me…behind them. Embarrassed with my general slowness on display, I kept walk-jogging because I had to. Now I see I only felt self-conscious when I compared my pace to that of the other kids; alone I just ran slow--not a shameful crime.
WE WOULDN’T FEEL BEHIND IN A VACUUM; IS COMPARISON THE REASON WE FEEL BEHIND?
When I was in my early twenties I had a full-time job, a boss, health insurance provided by my employer, a long-term relationship, and for silly-eating-disorder-related-reasons was sober before it was cool to be.
Today in my early thirties, I have creative projects that make money but inconsistently, work two retail shop jobs, started freelance SEO writing, haven’t had a long term relationship in years, and stayed out late more last month than I did in the entire decade of my twenties.
Is this backwards? Is this shameful? Or does it only feel wrong when, like gym class, I compare myself?
For me, my thirties, not my twenties, is the time I can handle staying out late, drinking some, casually dating, living two time zones from family, and the uncertainty and unpredictability of an entirely freelance career.
In this Courtney Barnett sings: “Run the race at your own pace
You'll get there”
It’s comforting but not true. More accurately…
*You might get there or not or you’ll go elsewhere.
We grow, and therefore what we want changes. We redefine it and then move closer to it. And detours inevitably come up, moving us somewhere else.
A few years ago a roommate read to me a part of the Alan Watts book he was reading. I don’t remember which book or where (if you know, tell me). But the passage was about the difference between how we think life will go vs. how it actually goes. Alan Watts depicts this with a diagram. A grid with straight lines represents how we thought it would be. A wild, curved line over the grid that looks like a twisted lasso represents how it actually is. In 2020 when he showed me I just said, “wow that would be a cool tattoo.”
Now two years later, I see how I’m living in the wild lasso line, not the grid. When my podcaster friend said I’d get there, she was referring to the grid of what I thought my life would be, but it ended up being the lasso line. I remember that day and that conversation with her well because one minute after she said the now-infamous-to-this-newsletter line: “you’ll get there”, a handsome tall gentleman in a green grandpa sweater said hi to us. A few months later he’d become my boyfriend: a detour from the work focused “there” I was focused on then. It ended, but I wouldn’t trade it, even if it distracted me from the one-track, mindset I’d been in before meeting him.
“Separate,
contact,
concentrate”
To me this alludes to the need for time alone vs. the need to contact others to quash loneliness. When my loneliness gets replaced with distraction, I need to concentrate again and therefore, as she says, separate. A cycle of leaning into detours then retreating to unpack what I discovered while moving around in them is a process I repeat like her refrain. When I am still in my own head too long, I feel anxious about being behind at my age, but this is only when comparing my timing to the timing of other people’s careers or relationships.
Birthdays cause me measure where I am against peers at my age. But it didn’t happen this year; I was focused on being grateful my “there” is here in California. On that day with her in 2016, the furthest west I’d gone was Chicago--I’d never even visited this state.
Today I am here. Will I get there? I don’t know.
Will I go somewhere I’ve never been and don’t know exists?
Thank you for being here. You’re doing great wherever you are.
Below are episodes with guests in three different decades,
-Vanessa is in her 40s
-Sacha is in her 50s
-Norma is in her 70s
- I’m in my 30s
In my conversation with Norma I voiced to her my fears around aging, dating, and feeling stunted compared to my peers. But in hearing about these guests’ lives, a common thread is they were all led in directions they couldn’t have anticipated but turned out well. I hope it will for me too, and you.
Love,
Katie
Things I’m working on now that I'm 32…
- Stop fixing myself or trying to. I don’t have to do the 10 things I said I had to do to allow dopamine release or fun… I don’t have to delay my gratification because by delaying it I might actually miss it altogether.
- Stop comparing myself and my timing to how long things take other people.
- Sleep… better sleep hygiene. Or maybe we’ll sleep when we’re dead? Or is that what all sleep-deprived people say?
What are you working on? Join me in any of these?
ALSO,
if you want support or accountability, I have only ONE spot now open for summer. If you want to have a call with me to find out if it could be a fit for you, here’s the link to read more about what the SUPPORTIVE SESSIONS are and how creative consulting with me works, plus a link to book a phone call with me to talk about it. This episode from last summer explains how sessions work from 4 people who have done it with me over the year : ) or as always email me with any questions on anything. katie@letitouttt.com
**Images above of sailor Bernard Moitessier on his boat Joshua here. 
