Seasons Change
As the wheel of the year comes to a close, I find myself, as usual, in a reflective state. This past year has held so much for me.
It was in late October last year that Marlow came into our family, and then we celebrated our second round of holidays in our still very new home. The days were blissfully short. The Southern California autumn rains had turned everything green again. It was the first time we were going to have both of our families here together on Christmas morning. Work provided a daily feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment. Life was full of promise.
And then, with the winter solstice, came the difficult time of watching the amazing startup enterprise my colleagues and I had woven together from brilliance, tenacity, scrappiness and dreams quickly unravel under a very ill-informed founder and CEO.
Wide Open Spaces
By mid-January, my life was completely different in a way I hadn't anticipated. For the first time in three decades, I had lost a job. There was nothing I had to do, and everything I could possibly do was unfolding in front of me. That is a lot of freedom for a person who had spent nearly thirty years with every hour accounted for.
For the first two months, I kept waking up feeling late for meetings I didn't have. I felt vulnerable and anxious. So I did what was in front of me. I tidied the house. I spent time in the garden. I cleaned out and closed down our storage unit. I caught up with friends. I remembered to meditate, drink water, move my body, eat well, and get decent sleep. Slowly, my nervous system began to regulate.
With deep reflection and my partner's encouragement, I decided to try building something just for myself for the first time. What I never realized about building a business on my own is that focusing on the business means focusing on me. I am the salesperson, the marketer, the product, the customer journey, the operator, and entirely responsible for every outcome. Without a team to lead, someone else's mission to drive, or a performance review to aspire to, there is only me, the instrument, the work, and a lot of hours logged in front of my laptop. Eventually, through my network, I landed one client engagement, and then another.
The wheel of the year turned, and I spent the spring and summer working for my two clients while traveling, reflecting, and teaching. There was a trip to Australia, visits to the majestic redwoods, a nostalgic birthday weekend in Marina del Rey with my honey, Worldcon with my son, other trips and getaways to wine country, nights out to catch some live music, and countless home-cooked meals.
On my birthday trip at the end of the summer, my honey took us out to a live soul show at The Rhythm Room in Los Angeles, where a young couple just starting out in life sat at the table next to ours. Somewhere between the second song and the third, we were deep in conversation about relationships, kids, marriage, university, jobs, where to build a life, and how to thrive instead of just survive. As the set came to a close and they were leaving, they thanked me for our conversation, and I wished for them the kind of happiness that brings peace. That kind of connection only happens when everyone involved is fully present in the moment.
Contrary to what some who have seen me work a room may believe, I don't feel energized talking to a room full of strangers. But if inside that room I can find my people and genuinely connect with them, even someone I just met at the table next to mine, that is exactly how I get fed. Connection charges my battery. And as I continue to heal, my capacity reallocates. Less room for crap, more room for what I actually need.
Bonus Levels
And then the wheel turned to autumn, a time of stillness after the hustle and bustle of summer, when the voices of the past can be heard more clearly, the presence of loved ones surrounds us, and we pause to reflect on what has been harvested.
One day, on a call, my eyes drifted to a collage on my desk, a gift from my sister, of five different pictures of my dad at various phases of his adult life. Sitting there, in the middle of an ordinary workday, I was overwhelmed by the realization that I am older now than my father was in any of those pictures.
It isn't a new idea. I know the exact date I became older than my father. It was early December 2023, and it was impactful then. But this time, something different landed: how every moment of my life since then has been a bonus, because none of this is guaranteed. It wasn't guaranteed to my father, and it is not guaranteed to me.
It turns out there's research on this. Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen has spent decades studying what happens when we sense that our time is limited. We get more selective. We spend our time on the people and activities that mean the most, our outer circles get smaller, and our close relationships hold. And with that knowledge, I am unwilling to waste my life, to the detriment of my health and well-being, in the pursuit of other people's dreams.
Tolstoy said it best in his short story The Three Questions:
"Remember then: there is only one time that is important: Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are, for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!"
When I look back on this year, this is how I lived. When the ground fell out from under me in January, I did the next thing in front of me. I valued the people around me. And I did my best to do good. Now, ten months into this new adventure, I feel rooted in my values, and rooted in community, perhaps less self-focused and more self-aware.
The work I'm most proud of this year has happened over the backdrop of white noise created by my very large, loving, and busy life and family, and I've realized:
I'm not willing to go back to a lifestyle of hyper-productivity and burnout. Being present in my life is too important to me.
I have stopped spending my capacity on other people's drama, or on their upset at the consequences of their own choices. I get to choose how I show up in the world.
The room fills up with the right people once you stop making space for the wrong ones. And sometimes, it's about changing rooms.
The wheel turns. Seasons change. I'm starting this new year actually loving myself with complete abandon and acceptance, reveling in my own talents and strange, specific rhythms that make me me and no one else. The winter that looked like an ending turned out to be wide open space. I'm a free range human now, and every moment from here is a bonus.
Now is the only time I have any power, and I intend to use it.
