When I went to my 50th reunion from Wheaton College (the one in Massachusetts),
the graduation speaker gave a wonderful speech about all the things he
wished he had known when he graduated from college 30 years before.
I’ve been thinking about that, and came up with a list of my own:
1) I wish I had gone to a therapist in my twenties instead of
my fifties to learn about self-defeating patterns that were keeping me
from getting where I wanted to go. When I finally found a really
good therapist at the age of 54 after my daughter became blind due to diabetes,
I learned much more than how to cope with this devastating turn in our
lives. My relationship with my husband and my other daughter improved.
Everything got better. I go back for refresher courses from time
to time and always learn new ways to get through this life.
2) I wish someone had emphasized the importance of figuring out
the little things that give me great pleasure and told me to program them
into my life every week instead of making lists of Things To Do, that were
productive, but not necessarily fun. I’m not sure I knew that I was
allowed to do things just for the fun of it, especially when I was raising
my children and my life was planned around them and my husband. If
I had it to do over again, I would make a date with myself once a week
and find someone to speak French to, take a course in play writing, learn
to tap dance, do a jigsaw puzzle, or stay in a bubble bath all afternoon
with a book until the children came home.
3) I devoutly wish someone had taught me how to manage money. Money
is such a mystery to me and always has been. My eyes glaze over when
somebody starts talking about money markets, mutual funds, and all that
stuff, and I realize now how vital it is to make that as important a part
of my knowledge as how to replace that rubber ball in the toilet tank.
4) I wish Julia Cameron had written her book, “Artist’s Way,” when I
graduated from college instead of a few years ago. (She wasn’t even alive
then.) Her book changed my life, and one of the main ways it did
that was to persuade me to write three pages every morning when I wake
up. It’s not a journal, it’s not a diary, it’s a sort of stream of consciousness
brain drain that gets rid of all those annoying little thoughts that keep
you from focusing on what you want to accomplish that day, next week, next
month and next year.
5) I wish I had known that there is a universal force that kind
of pushes me along when I ask for help. I used to be an agnostic who didn’t
really believe there was a higher power up there. Then when I wanted to
write a book about my life growing up with a brother with mental retardation,
for instance, my best friend decided to become an agent just at that time,
after writing eight books herself. She found me an excellent publisher
and a healthy advance. Things like that happen time and again until I no
longer think of them as coincidences.
6) I wish I had known that you can’t expect the people closest
to you to act in ways you would like them to act unless you spell it out
for them. I thought you could just expect people to act in the same
ways you would act in similar situations. Doesn’t work out that way.
A man who can’t say, “You look tired. Let me cook and do the dishes today,”
spontaneously, will do all that if you specifically ask him to. Otherwise,
he hasn’t a clue. Which reminds me of a story I heard the other day
I think you’ll like: A man came home from work and the house was
a disaster area. Dishes in the sink. Half-eaten food on the table.
Books and toys all over the floor. Beds unmade and his wife upstairs
reading. “What happened here?” he asked. “Everything is a mess.”
His wife said, “You know how you always come home and say, ‘What do you
do all day?’ Well, today I didn’t do it.”
7) I wish someone had told me that I should make physical activities
as integral a part of my life as intellectual pursuits so I wouldn’t think
of them as exercise and therefore a chore now. I wish hiking,
biking, swimming, dancing, kayaking and tennis were so much a part of my
existence that I would actually miss them if I didn’t do them. Instead,
I force myself to walk or go to an aerobics class at the gym. They should
all be enjoyable, fun, as important as lunch with a friend.
8) I wish I had known that everything changes. That there isn’t
one single thing in your life that stays the same no matter how much you
count on it. Buddhism teaches that suffering is caused by attachment.
I always resisted this idea because I like being attached to friends and
my children and my grandchildren, to Paris and Cape Cod and New York City.
But since everything changes, you can’t always count on looking at the
rooftops of Paris because there are now tall buildings in Montparnasse.
You can’t count on children living nearby because they have their own lives
to live. Grandchildren change into teenagers who still love you but don’t
exactly share your interests (unless you still play baseball and basketball).
Change is a fact of life, but I still wish some things would stay the same.
9) I wish I had known when I was 20 that being a writer is a perfectly
valid way to earn a living, that it’s not some kind of hobby to do on the
side. When the personnel woman at Time Magazine told me they
didn’t hire women as writers in 1950, I should have kept looking until
I found some place that did hire women as writers. Look at all the
women who persevered and went to law school and medical school when the
world discouraged them at every turn of the road. Harvard didn’t
even accept women into their law school until 1952!
10) And finally, I wish someone had told me how much fun it would
be to be 72. That I didn’t have to worry about getting older, that
in some ways, it’s the best part so far, except for the years raising my
children.
E-mail me about the things you
wish someone had told you when you were young. I’d love to hear about them.
Happy New Year to all of you.
