Finished by fifty

What anchors me, what I'm letting go of, and words of wisdom from Terry Tempest Williams and Ada Limón.

From THE WANDER SOCIETY by Keri Smith

At a party recently, I found myself in a conversation with friends who retired a few years ago. They met in the Peace Corps, where they also got pregnant and then eventually married. At some point they made a plan to be ‘finished at fifty’ and they’ve done it. They are not finished in the I’m old, life’s over, I’m done for, I’m dying, over and out sort of way. From my sense of how they’ve spent the time since they officially retired from their jobs, they are finished with the constraints, finished living to work, finished with the bullshit.

What do I want to be finished with by 50?

I’ve heard more than a few women say that aging is wonderful because, in the later chapters of life, they begin to feel more like themselves. (Read Oldster Magazine for some really lovely reflections on aging!)

Over the past year, I stumbled into learning a little bit about the Enneagram system. Locating my dominant type within the circles of personality types felt freeing, as if someone had just given me permission to be fully myself. I felt seen.

I thought, so this is actually a legit personality to be!

At fifty, I am finished trying to be anything other than myself. I remember reading a book by Gretchen Rubin when I was a new mother. She was undergoing a year-long “happiness project” getting to know what made her feel really good. By the end of the year, her mantra and inner compass was “Be Gretchen.”

I know it seems obvious to want to be wholly oneself, but the truth is I’ve always felt misunderstood. Everyone feels that way, my husband said when I tried to explain my revelation recently. Maybe that’s true. But at fifty, I want to be finished worrying about it.

My tendency is to stretch, to expand, to wander, to enjoy, to rest, to relish, to remember. Every time I slow down — which is what sitting down with pen and journal is, which is what getting on my yoga mat is, which is what wandering around near and far encourages, which is what Wanderlife is — these are all paths to remembering who I am.

And while that sounds self-centered and self-absorbed, I’m finished with that judgement and misinterpretation. I am also finished accepting the pace and resulting anxiety of our fractured culture as my own. It’s a pace and a culture that pushes ahead at a fearfully frenetic speed with righteous arrogance that I find, frankly, offensive.

At my core, I am curious and open-hearted. I see the good. I look for beauty and value the art of noticing beauty. And after five decades of life in this complicated, messy, brutal, and devastating world, I’m a little shocked to realize these tendencies that are deeply part of me, that maybe I was even born with, have not been boxed up and put on the shelf. I have tried, at times, to be less of me, to be more of some other personality I’ve thought might be more useful or successful. Haven’t we all wished we were something else, or someone else? Other personalities often seem to have it easier, make more money, or fit in better.

But my yoga teacher asks, What if we leaned into our true natures? What if we wielded our superpowers?

Terry Tempest Williams is one of my favorite writers and a personal hero of sorts. I admire her. When I got the chance to meet her, I was impressed by how she really listened. Her presence was truly present. Her eyes twinkled and her energy felt grounded, despite having just come off stage from a keynote at the Wisconsin Book Festival. That was in 2007, but I haven’t forgotten how it felt to be in her energy field. I realized I didn’t know many women like that, but that I wanted to be like that.

She was probably about my age in 2007. A few years later, when she was 54 years old, she wrote the book “When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice.” The book is personal, as all of her writing is, and she reflects on her life as a writer. She says, “To write requires an ego, a belief that what you say matters. Writing also requires an aching curiosity leading you to discover, uncover, what is gnawing at your bones.” Her curiosity for self and world is shared generously. Like her physical presence, her written words are both light and anchored.

I want to be like that. Light and anchored. A wandering spirit, grounded in myself.

Do I deserve to do this work?

“Why do I get to be lucky in this way,” Ada Limón pondered in a conversation with Krista Tippett just after becoming the 24th Poet Laureate of the United States. Who am I to look at this flower or tree and then spend my time writing about it? She reminds the audience that the doubting is common. All artists and writers ask themselves if they deserve to do this work.

Limón defends the value of this role by saying, “It anchors you to the world, again and again and again.” Later in the conversation she laughs and admits she is enjoying getting older. I think it must all be connected. I think I’m enjoying aging, too.

She also says this, which gets me back to the question of what I want to be finished with at fifty: “I think it is very dangerous not to have hope. And if you can’t have hope, I think we need awe, or a little wonder, or at least a little curiosity.”

Yes, yes, this! And for the lucky ones who know how to find hope, awe, and wonder, who are open-hearted and always wandering toward the light, Let’s please not be finished.

Things are crazy out there! I am extremely nervous about the upcoming US election and I don’t know how we are going to get through. And. In addition to voting and engaging as active members of our communities, I think the world needs all members and wanna-be members of The Wander Society to exalt in the trees and the flowers. (The artist Keri Smith lays out how to join in the fun in this book.)

I was going to copy the poem “Dead Stars” by Ada Limón here, but I think it’s so much nicer to listen to her read it, so I’m including the video link below.

But this one line…

Look, we are not unspectacular things.
      We’ve come this far, survived this much. What 

would happen if we decided to survive more?

I don’t know what will happen with the Wanderlife project after I turn fifty, but if you have some thoughts on the matter, please let me know! And I’d also like to know: What are you finished with, and how do you find more freedom for yourself?

Thanks for reading and wandering with me,

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