The end of the week is finally here. Hallelujah! I’m looking forward to a weekend with nowhere to go and no obligations. It feels like it’s been a couple of months since that’s happened. I have a ton of chores to do this weekend that I’m not looking forward to, mostly cleaning related: clean the fridge, clean the windows, clean the baseboards. But I’m happy I’ll be able to wake up when I want to wake up, lay on the couch and read in the middle of the day if I want to, maybe go for a longer run than my weekday runs if the weather’s nice. Watch the US/Netherlands World Cup match. I can put a time limit on the chores to make sure I save some time for rest and leisure.
Author: Andrea Badgley
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I’m twisted sideways to type this because a cat crawled into my lap before I was able to get my computer out of my bag. I sat on the couch with my coffee on the end table next to me, pulled a fleece blanket over my legs, and she was on me within 3 seconds. Now she’s nestled in the basket of my crossed legs, purring and looking up at me.
I didn’t know what I was going to write about today, so I pulled a card for a prompt. It asked, what’s one thing that doesn’t cost anything, occurs naturally, and always makes you smile? I guess our cats cost us in food and vet bills (and sleep), but they do make me smile, especially when they purr or do funny stuff, which is often. Goats hopping make me smile. Llamas and alpacas make me smile. Bunnies, chipmunks, most baby mammals.
But probably the most common thing that truly doesn’t cost anything, occurs naturally, and almost always makes me smile is laughter. It doesn’t have to be my laughter, or even the laughter of people I know, but seeing people have fun and laugh brings me joy. Here’s a gift if the same is true for you:
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I remembered the other day that I used to want to be a meteorologist when I grew up. I have no recollection of why I wanted to be a meteorologist. I don’t remember particularly caring about the weather as a child. I only remember that there was a meteorologist on a local TV station who I wrote a letter to because I wanted to be a meteorologist like him, and he didn’t write me back, and my parents were salty about that on my behalf.
I’m baffled by this childhood affinity for meteorology, I don’t remember anything about my motivation there. Did I think the TV part was cool? I don’t remember ever aspiring to want to be on TV either, and there were plenty of other people on TV whose roles I could want if that was the case.
Meteorology was later replaced by marine biology (is there any child who didn’t want to be a marine biologist?), which I understand better because I loved the ocean and all its creatures and mystery and beauty, and if I liked something, I should get a job that puts me in proximity of that thing so I can be around it all the time.
It’s funny how we change throughout life, and get to know ourselves better. I love weather now in a way I don’t remember loving it as a small child who wanted to be a meteorologist. I love the raindrops beaded on the window as I type, and the sound of rain tapping against the roof. I love the way the sun and a blue sky bring me joy, wind makes me wistful, grey days allow me to rest and be cozy inside, snow brings quiet and peace and a sense of magic. I love experiencing the weather, and finding out what the weather’s like when I’m talking to someone who lives somewhere different from me, so that I can place them in their environment while we talk.
But despite loving all those things, I don’t want to study the weather. I just want to enjoy it. Same with marine biology. Just because I like something doesn’t mean I need to do a scientific investigation of it. I’d prefer to appreciate the beauty and feeling of it.
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Nineteen years ago, I became a mother. I had no idea of the universes inside of me that would be revealed when this little person was born into our lives. This little person we made, who didn’t exist, and then did, who grew inside of my body, then entered the world totally dependent on us for everything: food, shelter, comfort, survival; answers to questions about a dead squirrel on the sidewalk, about what happens when we die, about why people are mean, about whether trees have souls, about what’s beyond the universe if the universe is finite. It’s one thing to answer those questions for ourselves, it’s another to consider them in partnership with a little being who trusts you completely, who turns to you for everything. It’s a big responsibility. Our children opened gateways inside me that I don’t think I would ever know the existence of without them. Our children doubled the me of me. It’s as if I was only half of me, and then we had kids, and their existence in our lives pulled back the curtain on the rest of me. I cannot articulate the profound, breathtaking transformation and realizations that parenthood blew open for me.
Our son, who made me a mother, is 19 today. This is his first birthday we’re not together for. He’s fine with that, he’s got friends to celebrate with in college. I’m okay with it too. I made his favorite dessert on Saturday when he was home, and we celebrated as a family by eating chocolate torte together. The fact that he loves us but he’s okay with not being here, that he’s happy to be out on his own in the world, makes me feel like we did okay as his guardians.
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I drove our son back to college yesterday. We talked about and listened to music most of the drive there. The round trip took seven hours instead of the typical four. I felt lucky to make it to Charlottesville and back without being involved in an accident. The highway was littered with crashes.
We had a fun and relaxing week, all four of us together in the house again. We watched F1 together, and World Cup matches. We watched a few movies — Taxi Driver, Nope, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, Blade Runner — all of them great in different ways. We feasted on Thanksgiving day.
After Thanksgiving was over and before the pie plate was even empty, I made a flourless chocolate torte to celebrate our son’s 19th birthday. We won’t see him on his actual birthday; he’ll be back at school. We also wouldn’t have seen him soon enough to decorate for Christmas together unless we did it while he was here for break. It was about two weeks earlier than we’d normally do it, but we drove out to the Christmas tree farm on Saturday, cut an eight foot fir, and decorated it Saturday night while eating torte for his birthday.
This was the longest amount of time we’ve had him home since he left for college, and I loved having him back in the house. When I went to bed at night and woke in the morning, I felt a sense of peace knowing our daughter was safe in her room and our son safe in his, and we were all together again. Though I adore having him at our house, when I dropped him back off in Charlottesville yesterday, I felt easy about it. It’s a joy having him with us, but I’m also happy to see how much he loves his life at UVA. When he left in August, it was time for him to leave our home and build a new one in a new town for himself. He was ready.
Today it’s back to work for me and my husband, and back to school for the kids. We’ve got two weeks until our son’s finals are over, and then we get him back for a whole month. We’re staying put for the holidays so the kids can hang out with friends and we can just live our lives together for a few weeks without any pressure to go anywhere or do anything.
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I sometimes feel adrift. I’m 48, likely more than halfway through my life, and this drifting has become clearer to me as I look forward a decade or so and think about what life might look like in retirement. It used to be that our kids gave our lives structure. Now that one has moved out and the other drives, they provide structure on a macro scale — what days we all have off together — but not so much at the daily level. On a daily basis, work gives my life structure.
When I think about it at the surface level, retirement sounds phenomenal. No demands on my time, no obligations, my life is completely my own to direct however I want. But sometimes, when faced with time without demands or obligations, even just on weekends, I realize, I don’t know what direction to go.
If you’re a regular reader, it will come as no surprise that I found some great insights in a podcast episode. I tell you, I love the Hidden Brain podcast. On my post-Thankgsiving run, I listened to their Cultivating Your Purpose episode, where they open with a scene from The Graduate, where a young college graduate floats in a swimming pool, not looking for work, not looking towards graduate school, just adrift while his dad asks him what his plans are next, now that his parents have spent all this money to put him through college.
On the podcast, they talk about how a lot of us feel adrift like that, especially in transitions like graduating from college, mid-life, or as we begin thinking about retirement. We feel a sense of languishing. Those who have a sense of purpose feel less adrift. They have aspirations for the future, and those aspirations give them direction. On the podcast, they share two questions you can ask yourself to see if you have a sense of purpose:
- Do you feel like your life has a clear direction?
- Do you feel your daily activities are engaging? Important?
The first question I can answer easily: no. If my life had a clear direction, I don’t think I would have been so eager to listen to this podcast, and I don’t think I’d be wondering so much about what to do with myself when the kids are gone. The second question is more clear to me. I do feel like most of my daily activities are engaging: I exercise my body and mind, I learn, I laugh, I share joy and love with my family and friends, I help keep our home tidy and our bodies fed, I eat dinner with my people every night, I pet and feed and love the cats, I give my energy and brain power to a company I feel has integrity and whose mission I believe in, I appreciate beauty and excellence, both in human creativity and in the natural world.
Are these things important? I think so. They don’t save lives or the planet, they’re not activism, but they matter on a small scale.
I’m hung up on the direction thing, though. I don’t know what my direction is, and I feel like that’s pretty important to purpose. For example, if I had a year to do whatever I wanted, what would I do? My first instinct is to say I’d travel, slowly. By that, I mean that I’d spend significant time in each place I visited so that I could get a true taste of what life is like there. But even then, what would I do on a daily basis? I’m not saying I don’t want to travel or that this is a terrible idea, I’m trying to get at why — why do I want to travel? What’s my driver? Because that’s what will give me direction on what to do on a daily basis.
My husband and I went to see The Banshees of Inisherin Friday night. In the beginning of the movie, the main character, Pádraic, is abandoned by his best friend, Colm. We soon learn that Colm does this because he considers Pádraic to be dull. Dull, dim, and “a nice guy.” Pádraic, the good one of all of them on the tiny island off of Ireland. Not super sharp, pretty clueless, but honest to goodness nice.
Throughout the movie, Pádraic suffers loss after loss until I began to despair for him. Sometimes I am comforted by our smallness in the vastness of the universe. We are insignificant. Our smallness provides a sense of proportion when life’s problems seem overwhelming. Other times, our smallness, our insignificance, our meaninglessness in the grand scheme of the universe raises the question of “If we don’t matter, what’s the point? Why bother?” This is the feeling I began to get on behalf of Pádraic.
And I think this is where purpose comes in. Not meaning, which looks backwards to make sense of the life you’ve already lived, but purpose, which looks forward to the life you continue to live for. In the movie, when it seems Pádraic really has nothing left, and he may as well just give up on life, you realize, no, he does have a reason to live. His life has purpose, he has purpose: to care for the innocents, to stand up for himself, to be good and nice. In that sense, Pádraic the dullard has a strong identity and is less adrift than others in the movie.
So what’s my purpose? My first thought was that it’s to appreciate being alive. To enjoy and love the world around me. To acknowledge the gifts of life, to notice them, to receive them, and to celebrate them, like in The Color Purple when Shug says, “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”
But is that enough, though? Is “appreciate being alive” direction? Loving my husband, my kids, my family, and my friends is a huge part of that appreciation, but I think they need a specific mention. The most important thing to me is to love my people, and to make them feel loved. It’s something I’m by no means perfect at, and will keep working towards for the rest of my life.
Butterfly Mind 