Some things I’ve learned at 49

Happy birthday to me

Ten years ago, I was working for a local publication on Long Island, and in the throes of what I can only assume was a mid-life crisis. I felt deeply misunderstood (by myself even) and a desperate yearning for something I couldn’t pinpoint. When I tried to write some profound thoughts on my impending 40^th birthday for a column, I could not come up with one thing I knew for sure. So I wrote a list of 39 things I didn’t know.

A decade later, things are a little different. After burning down my entire life that year, I rebuilt, destroyed, and constructed more lives since than I can count. And you know what? I have learned a thing or two.

So here’s a new list of things I’ve learned.

• You don’t need permission to:

  • Take up space

  • Ask questions

  • Lead

  • Leave

  • Arrive

  • Hunger

  • Say no

• When I indulge in meanness, pettiness, or gossip, I feel bad.

• Gratitude feels good.

• The God of my understanding looks more like Lizzo than Dumbledore

• Shame is a waste of time.

• The belief that my faults made me unqualified to be loved and accepted and that if anybody ever found them, I would be disqualified from participating in the human race was exhausting.

• These hidden insecurities were precisely my tickets to join humanity.

• What had held me separate was the belief that every other person wasn’t holding the same disqualifiers.

• Joy is a form of rebellion.

• I am not defined by the things I buy

• Or the candidates I vote for.

• Used books tell better stories.

• Giving zero fucks is a sad way to live.

• But giving too many can be painful.

• Prioritize your fucks.

• My kids have a lot to teach me.

• Forgiveness comes in waves.

• Salt air and sea breeze are spiritual.

• Everything can be spiritual if you know where to look.

• Loving somebody is the most hopeful act you can do.

• Letting yourself be loved is the bravest.