What I Didn't Know Then But Know Now

And on being any age (ish)

I learned A LOT from Lindsey Mead when she shared with me her father’s brass rat on the podcast. What is a brass rat? Tune in by clicking the player down below to find out. Lindsey has written so beautifully about the passage of time, about losing her dad, about being a mother, a writer….. a person in the world on her blog, A Design So Vast. Lindsey’s a wife too, but like yours truly, Lindsey tends not to write so much about the husband because, well — she can do that.

When Lindsey wears the brass rat on a chain around her neck she feels her dad with her. Her dad died unexpectedly over six years ago, and as Lindsey said to me, what she didn't know then that she knows now is how she still feels her father right there with her every day.

Since I heard Lindsey utter those words, I have been saying them over and over again to myself. How many moments in those specs of life are there when we didn’t know then what we most certainly know now?

What I didn’t know then in 2002, when I said no to the MBA summer internship in Minneapolis, but what I know now, is that saying no was not a mistake. That internship (which seamed quite intriguing back then) would have most likely led to a job that was not something I ultimately wanted to do, in a place where I didn’t want to be. Saying no to that internship gave me a summer of being with my mom, who had less than two years left to live. I didn’t know that then.

What I didn’t know then in 2007, when I sat in an hour plus long conference in a tiny nursery school chair at a tiny nursery school table with three well meaning adult professionals reporting to me about my four year old’s inability to properly cut with scissors, but what I know now, is that the kid would one day figure out how to use scissors. He would go on to elementary school, high school and college, and one day I would laugh about the great scissor sit down.

Lindsey Mead and her father’s brass rat which she wears around her neck

On Being 40 (ish)

Lindsey edited a wonderful book called On Being 40 (ish) which was published in 2019 when she was 40-ish. The book includes essays from some of my absolute favorite writers like Jill Kargman who came on the podcast, Catherine Newman, Veronica Chambers, Lee Woodruff, Allison Winn Scotch, a past podcast guest too among many others. Each woman approaches the milestone decade from a unique perspective. I highly recommend this book no matter what decade of life you may be in right now.

On Being 40 (ish) edited by Lindsey Mead when she was 40 (ish)

When I first read the book when I was 40 (ish) on the verge of mid life, I found myself being pulled in a swirling maze of different directions. As Lindsey said, the 40s can be a demanding decade. There were days I would rush home from a solid day of writing to meet my kids at home to start the next shift of driving them to sports, to Hebrew school, to friends houses and then circle back home in time to make dinner for the kids, my husband and for my dad, who ended up at my kitchen table more nights than not. After dinner and dishes, just as I sat down to my computer to squeeze in more writing time, I was called upstairs to help decipher the hell that was, and I believe still is, the new middle school math.

On Being 50 (ish)

Lindsey is on the cusp of being 50 and I am full on there. Re-reading this book in this new decade of life, and attempting to predict on air with Lindsey about what this new decade may bring at this moment, gave me pause. And perhaps that is because I have somehow found time and space to pause. On the verge of becoming an empty nester, in the groove of my new work, and with the new middle school math safely in the rearview mirror, I don’t feel the pull of the swirling maze as I once did.

What I didn’t know then in my 40s when my dear dad, the best customer for dinner at my kitchen table on so many nights, is what I know now that he would be gone less than six months before I turned 50.

What I didn’t know then in my 40s, when I was trying to crank out a book every couple of years, is what I know now that I would find a whole new world of work in promoting other people’s work.

And what I didn’t know then in my 40s when I fell asleep in a parked car outside of the school gym waiting for my son to come out of middle school and high school basketball practices at 9pm on many cold winter nights, is what I know now that the son would be off playing basketball at a gym in a college town far from my cozy bed where I was fast asleep for the night.

The Best Years of Your Life

Back when I was in business school worried about looming group project due dates and internship interviews, my mom gave me unsolicited advice one day on the phone as I walked through a paved campus path, the endless gray Michigan sky above me.

“You better enjoy this time now,” she said to me through my flip phone. “These are the best years of your life.” Her words stopped me in my tracks. Was I wasting these years away with the worry of the banal day to day? Were those years — my 20s — the best years of my life?

I stopped myself just the other day while talking to my daughter about plans for her freshman year in college now just a couple months away. I was feeling so much excitement for her, imagining what lies ahead. I wanted to tell her that she was on the verge of the best years of her life, but that felt like too much pressure to put on her. And also, who am I to say so? Will these be the best years of her life?

What are the best years of any of our lives? Is there even such a thing? My best guess for now is that each and every year, every decade, every moment has the potential to be so if only we knew then what we know now.