Appreciating wise women
Fifteen years after my move back to Maine when I had driven away from Grinnell, Iowa, with an eleven-year-old in the back seat, I returned on a cross-country trip. My 2019 Honda Civic was enough like the 1997 Geo Prizm I drove back in those stay-at-home mom days that perhaps I can forgive my mind for the tricks it played on me. As I wandered around that small town where I spent twenty of my most formative years, muscle memory took over. I was my 40-year-old self again, and in my backseat was not the family pet who accompanied me on this year’s cross-country trek, but my son. In my mind, we were en route to a ball game or a friend’s house or a chance to see the freight trains. It was so clear in my mind that I truly felt transported back in time.
Which left me grateful for the heart I have, the young man who calls me mom, and the village of friends who supported me in those early professional years and in those early mom years. I reconnected with two of those amazing friends on this trip: Dorothy and Jo. Both women, now over 70, gave me such important life lessons. And seeing both women after more than a decade reminded me that with old friends, you just pick up where you left off.
Dorothy taught me this lesson: “we do the best we can with the information available to us at time.” Say that again: “we do the best we can with the information available to us at the time.” Possessed of the long view even in her younger days, Dorothy was the wise friend who met me as a new admissions counselor colleague and knew me through dating days, early professional days, and then motherhood. Steady and grounded and one of the most accomplished women I’ve ever known, Dorothy remains a true friend I treasure.
Jo taught me two key lessons: “don’t postpone joy” and “learn to live with uncertainty.” Jo and I worked together in a college career center. Our shared political leanings and social justice orientation cemented our friendship. She’s one of the smartest women I know. Her ability to embrace the uncertainties of life taught the prone-to-control person that I am to hang on and navigate life’s challenges. When my personal life imploded a few years back, Jo was one of a handful of friends who understood. And who never said “everything happens for a reason” (because it most certainly doesn’t). This time, Jo and I talked about the ability to hold sorrow and joy at the same time, and to cherish life no matter what.
Reaching the milestone of sixty may sadden some in our youth-obsessed culture. But, I offer an alternate perspective on aging: the ability to reconnect with the people and places you treasure, the opportunity to hold both joy and sorrow simultaneously, and the recognition of what truly matters in your life.
