The Luminist

“T-shirt!! T-shirt!! T-shirt!!!!” Locking eyes with the masked, cone-hatted man on the float’s top tier, I kept shouting as I waved my arms and jumped up and down like a flaily car-dealership inflatable tube man.

Mr. Cone Hat momentarily disappeared. Popping back into view, he launched a rubber-banded white cotton missile through the air. I leaped for it, the beads around my neck banging up against my chin, glasses falling off my head.

“I got it! I got it!” I gleefully held up my prize to Kevin and Cynthia. 

Their response matched my enthusiasm. “Show us what it looks like!” 

While rolling the rubber band off, I had an out of body experience. My awareness floating above, I looked down at my multicolored fedora, my multiple strings of beads, and the plastic, palm-sized cow tucked into my right pocket and thought, “How the hell did I get here?”

But there was no time for navel gazing! The next marching band’s drum line had already kicked into gear. I stuffed my newly acquired loot into my left pocket and stepped back onto the street, hands clapping, toes tapping, smiling like the little kids perched on their dads’ shoulders, bouncing along to the band’s rhythm. There was far more Mardi Gras-ing to do.

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I’d never set out to attend Mardi Gras.

I’m pretty confident I could have quite happily gone my entire life without ever going to Mardi Gras. So what was I doing here?

While booking Connor’s New Zealand flights last fall, I pictured myself wishing him farewell, coming back to the empty treehouse, and… reading a book?

I generally enjoy my solitude but going from a house full of Connor’s elated, Tigger-like energy to echoing silence would have been too much. It’s only taken seven years, but I’ve learned to spot these potential slides into hollowed-out loneliness a mile off. So seeing that red, flashing alarm light on the horizon, I whipped out my iPad and started clicky clacking my way to a surefire remedy — visiting my other beloved munchkin in her new habitat: New Orleans. By pure coincidence, it would be during Mardi Gras. 

Flash forward to February, I’m standing at the airport gate, trying to decide if I regret this coping mechanism.

My fellow passengers were not the typical crew. First, they were far more energetic than an 8am Saturday morning flight justified. Second… well, let’s just say they were not attired in the gray February uniform of the Northeast United States. The guy to my right had a neon parade T-shirt displaying the name of a ‘krewe’ (whatever that was). The lady in front of me was rocking a head-to-toe ensemble of psychedelic color, fanny pack, and shoes to match. More than one person was sporting purple hair. 

“Uh boy, this is going to be a one-and-done for me,” I thought. “I can tell, I am not a Mardi Gras person.”

Outfits with color in them? Not for me.

Preconceived notions of drunken debauchery? Not for me. 

Fun that’s different from my tried and true go-to’s? Not for me.

Friends are my kryptonite. 

I would have rather spent the weekend on the back porch of my Airbnb, reading one of the three books I packed for the four-day trip. But because Kevin and Cynthia were so excited to share their Mardi Gras expertise, I acquiesced. 

At dinner on Saturday night, we scanned the parade app. (Yep, that’s a thing.) Kevin formulated the plan, “Meet us at Magazine and Bordeaux at noon and we’ll go from there. We’ll start with the Krewe of Thoth parade.”

If either he or Cynthia were surprised by how unenthusiastic my “ok, fine” was, they didn’t show it.

The next day I took my time walking to our rendezvous point. Families of all shapes and sizes flooded down the streets holding hands, pulling wagons and carrying ladders with weird wooden boxes on top whose use I could not figure out. Families? Well, already that’s different than expected... 

Anther surprise were the outfits. A lady in front of me with carefully pinned faux butterflies all through her hair. Two guys in blowup dinosaur get-ups. And everyone from babies to 80+ year olds kitted out in the purple, gold, and green of Mardi Gras. I couldn’t help but smile. Somehow I spotted Kevin and Cynthia amidst the crowd, and found myself waving cheerily.

We crossed the street, squeezing into a space with an unobstructed view and friendly neighbors. Kevin popped into LeBonTempsRoule, an old haunt from his law school days, and soon emerged with cocktails. We chatted away about our kids while we waited for the parade to begin.

Then the remaining crowd milling in the street parted like the Red Sea as men on horseback trotted by in full masked and caped regalia, signaling the start of the action. 

The krewe’s king’s float came next, gliding majestically down the street. It looked like something out of a fairytale underneath the towering oaks dripping with colored streamers. The sound of distant marching band drums filled the air. The roar of the crowd escalated from a five to a ten. 

Welcome to one of the most fun experiences of my LIFE.

All of my favorite things were in this Mardi Gras parade:

Friends I love. We caught up on the months since we’d seen each other, celebrated each other’s loot haul, and shared our spoils — “I already got one of these, how about you take this one?”

Conversations with strangers. A dad with his three-year-old dancing atop his shoulders, the woman sharing her excitement that it was my first ever Mardi Gras, a man giving tips on the best location for tomorrow’s parades. 

Drums. Need I say more?? Marching bands of every shape, size, and age blasted heart-thumping sound waves through my body. It was impossible not to get lost in the feel-good groove.

Goofy humans giving each other permission to be goofy humans. My favorites were the 610 Stompers. Their slogan: Ordinary Men. Extraordinary Moves. Tube socks, baby blue shorts, red headbands, dancing their hearts out. Pure infectious joy. (See the video below!)

Families oozing with excitement. Kids with green capes atop makeshift ladder boxes (mystery solved) waved their arms with glee as the float-riders tossed them kid-sized loot. Copious squealing.

Laughter. So, so much laughter.

And I came within an inch of missing it all.

I’ve lived most of my life like a turtle, content in my shell. 

Sure, I’ve stuck my head out and pumped my stumpy little turtle legs to do some pretty courageous things — go to Patagonia by myself, share my private life with the Wall Street Journal, challenge the societal expectations of widowhood. But always on my own terms. Always within the realm of things I had already decided I was comfortable with.

Purple-haired seat mates on my NOLA-bound airplane? Turtle Sue gave those goofs one look and crossed out “attend Mardi Gras parade” on her calendar. And look what she would have missed.

I’m done being a turtle. Tucked in the darkness of this coffin-like covering, I can’t freaking see what delights the world has in store for me. Plus, this shell is weighing me the hell down. 

But… how does one actually take off their turtle shell? How do we become open-minded, adventurous, and curious when we’ve spent decades set in our ways? It’s not just about “being open”. That internal command is too squishy, too passive. My brain needs a tangible action to take. 

Something to do when my stomach churns in response to a new opportunity. Something to do when my heart leaps with excitement, then hits the ground with a thud at the risk. Something to do when my brain wants to default to the soft chair, warm fleece blanket, and book that will transport me to another world. But the technicolor reality I crave is not in my mind. It’s at my fingertips, there for the seizing.

Oh damn… I think I just have to practice saying “yes” when I want to say “no”.  

This isn’t a glamorous takeaway.

We’re not melting preconceived notions, limiting mindsets, or rutted-out habits with a 1000-word blog. We’re just admitting that we are human, that our synapses require time to reconfigure, and that what we want is worth the effort.

So as I pivot to embody a non-turtle spirit-animal (choice TBD, dolphin sounds fun!), I’m going to focus on baby steps. I’m going to practice the muscle movements of leaning in when I would rather lean so far out I land on my couch, next to my pile of books. I’m looking for events beyond my go-to museum tours and book talks: comedy shows, concerts, maybe even an improv class! My editor Leona tells me that if I practice enough, she’ll take me to Burning Man. Yikes. We’ll see about that!

But on the flip side, I feel like I have the most vibrant and amazing life right now. So the realization that there are even more fabulous things to explore is beyond exciting.

Sweaty palms and knocking knees may be the price of admission, but that cost is ridiculously low for a day of smiling so hard my face hurts.

Turtle Sue… hold my French 75.

Life in all its splendor awaits,

Sue

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

Last week, Connor was in a state of manic excitement. Even the mounds of dirty laundry, the giant give-away pile of clothes from his last-minute closet cleanout, and a different doctor's visit every day couldn’t sap his joy. He was on fire. 

“Ma, I can’t believe it is finally here! A dream in the making is about to become a dream in action!” His Tigger-like enthusiasm lit up the room. “I can’t believe I’m finally going to New Zealand!”

The idea to be a temporary Kiwi had lodged in Connor’s brain back in middle school. After Mike died, it had taken him a couple years to reach for it again. Then he’d planned a post-high school trip, but it was kiboshed by the pandemic. Now, almost a decade after the dream’s inception, he’s finally headed down south for five months. 

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In the few quiet moments I found during this final, frazzled prep week, I shook my head in disbelief at how far we’ve come. Not solely as individuals. As a pair. 

Like any parent and child, we wrestled through the push-pull of the teenage years. Figuring out how much to rely on each other and what to expect from each other. Duking it out over friend choices and video game obsessions. Learning to respect each other as individuals rather than hold onto each other whenever it was time to cross the street.

But in this last week of getting him ready — shopping for last minute items, picking up dry cleaning, exchanging currency — none of that old tension got in the way. Because we were not getting him ready. I was just a passenger riding shotgun, providing the occasional “you got this” or “yes, I think that packing strategy is great” as he led the way. He was adulting. I was along for the ride. Observing my child become a young man.

Mid-week, Connor invited me out for pancakes. 

We tucked into a booth at the neighborhood IHOP, the same one we visited regularly as a family of four.

“We used to come here a lot with daddy.” I remarked. Connor is infamous for his non-existent memory, so I’m always striving to bring moments with Mike back into his consciousness.

“I actually do remember that!” he beamed.

“So… this is a weird question, but what do you think about the mom I was then versus the mom I am now?” I asked.

“Well, I think you are a lot calmer now,” he responded. “Things that used to get you upset or mad don’t anymore. You are just more chill.”

In the early years, I was not a natural mom. I kept everyone healthy and happy, but was frequently overwhelmed by the combination of my full-time job and single parenting while Mike traveled during the week. I was wound tight — not at ease or confident in my capabilities as a mom — which showed in a shorter fuse.

I wish I could claim I just got better over time, like an athlete training for a race, my reps made me bigger, faster, stronger. Check out those parenting biceps! I’m so awesome!

But that’s revisionist history nonsense.

In the immediate aftermath of Mike’s death, everything became spilled milk. 

And I wasn’t doing anyone any favors by having a cow about it. The kids didn’t need me to overreact, micromanage, freak out. They needed me to just be there for them. They needed my presence. 

This sounds like a flimsy, airy-fairy skill, like hugging trees or channeling the energy of the universe. But it is the exact opposite of abstract or woowoo. It’s tangible in the most heart pounding, gut twisting, headache inducing excruciating way. 

Sitting with a being you love more than life itself while they suffer... but you stay for them. You stay.

Night after night, curled on the side of their mattress in the dark bedtime hour, lit only by the soft glow of the hallway night light, I shared their tears. Then shared a ferocious hug. Then an exhausted pitch into the oblivion of sleep, my hand firmly in theirs. Then we blinked awake to realize it was morning. We’d done the impossible and survived another wave of grief. 

We went on like this, stringing day after day together, supporting each other with daddy stories, daddy sayings, what-if-daddy-were-here scenarios. Together, we learned that we could make a new place for our beloved husband and father, even when we’d lost his place by our side. 

This grueling rise out of the pits of grief taught me that no matter what I did, I could not protect my children from death or life. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t take their pain away.

I couldn’t wipe their brains of all this grief and replace it with the sparkle of adolescent happiness that had prevailed just weeks before.

My ideas. My norms. My risk aversion. 

If I’m honest about it, these ruled my previous understanding of parenting (and life in general). If you do all the ‘right’ things, you’ll lead a happy life. Brush your teeth twice a day. Say “please” and “thank you”. Get good grades to go to a good college to get a good job. Use your napkin, and your inside voice. Well done. The Gods of What Is Fair & Proper will smile upon you.

What a farce. 

Life schooled me. I could not ensure happiness for the kids by following this false formula. 

But I could bring down the volume on their hardest times. 

Post-Mike, my expectations dissolved. I scrapped the roadmap on which I had charted Connor and Kendall’s paths to greatness. Instead, I sat with them, listened to them, and whenever I could, demolished any perceived limits on what they were capable of:

* I bit my tongue and my fingernails as Kendall did a three-week service stint in Morocco. I kept my trap shut while Connor scraped and clawed to get a summer job in LA. Unless someone’s safety is seriously jeopardized, I keep my comments to “well, you might consider…” and let them decide. 

* I never said, “You’ll absolutely get into Tulane!” or “Working at a hotel in Vail will be so great, guests are always so nice to the front desk!’’ I didn’t sugarcoat anything, but I also didn’t expect them to be stoic in the face of pain. I listened to their frustrations and anxieties whenever they needed an outlet. Because sometimes just talking out your fears brings them down to size. 

* When Kendall had an epic, train-wreck, parting-of-the-ways with her BFF, I didn’t call up the girl’s mom to try to patch it up. I stepped out of a conference room full of clients and coworkers after seeing three missed calls. I listened to her sob, repeating “I know this hurts like hell” whenever she paused to breathe. After a few minutes, she took a shaky inhale and said, “I’m going to go take a walk in Great Falls to feel better.” “My park pass in in the mud room,” I responded.

In other words, I threw out my ideas of what a “good mom” or “good kid” should do. Instead, I gave the kids space to unfold, to explore, to bloom in their own way. 

Before too long, I was even giving myself the same permission.

Now, as Connor and I take parallel leaps into the unknown — New Zealand for him, post-corporate life for me — it’s clear that dropping the expectations allowed us to blow through them. If I had continued to sweat the small stuff, none of us would have felt comfortable taking any risks. I wouldn’t be reducing their suffering, I would be pandering to my fear while hamstringing their dreams.

Instead of ball and chain, I choose to be their anchor. When the rest of the world is swirling, when the winds are buffeting my children, they know they can find safe harbor with me. And so they dare to venture. Even as they become adults, they still need that. We all need that.

Connor boarded his plane last Friday.

And after 24 hours in the air, three flights, a leap across the international date line, and a final bus ride to campus, he arrived at the University of Otago on the South Island of New Zealand. We texted all along the way. Silly stories. Credit card rejection worries. “I can’t believe I’m this far away” moments of panic.

All the while, my steadfast message was, “You got this.”

Because indeed he does.

I woke up the next morning to this text: 

Hope you’re having a great night’s sleep, ma — it was an amazing day today! Watched the Super Bowl, went indoor rock climbing with my flatmates and some new friends, got pizza and ice cream and some extra groceries!!! Life is good! Missing you very much though and I love you!! You’re the best! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

My face stretched wide with a smile. My muscles unclenched. My heart rate steadied.

He’s safe and sound… And happy. 

I helped keep him safe, but he followed his dreams to happy.

I can’t guarantee his future in the way that my fragile heart desperately wants to. But at least I can get out of his way and hold the safety net as he leaps into a life worth living.

To their (and my) full potential,

Sue

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

I’m on the hunt. My senses are sharpened. My brain is on high alert. My radar is up. I’m looking out over the horizon, at the crest of the next hill, to the far side of that jumbled cluster of trees. In the local coffee shop, grocery store, Home Depot. At the bookstore. Airport lounges. Hiking trails. REI?

At any moment, I might stumble upon that elusive species not often found in the ecosystem of mature adults.

That species otherwise known as... a brand new friend.

Many of my longest, dearest friendships sprung from the fertile soil of my work life. 

Takis, Luanne, CeCe, Sonya, and countless others I met in halls, offices, and conference calls during my decades as a corporate wonk. Although we have not always worked in the same building, or even at the same company, they remain steadfast forces for good in my life. 

In particular my V2X friends, the ones I met after Mike died, were instrumental in helping me become more than Sad Widow Sue: first Leader Sue, then Badass Sue, and finally Luminist Sue. I will forever be grateful for how they met and supported me when I was a ghost of my former self. They saw through the illusion of my own doubt. With compassion and humor and just the right amount of kick-in-the-pants, they walked by my side as I reclaimed all of me I thought I had lost and then some.

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

Though I no longer had a husband, thanks to these work friends my life was again soon buzzing with familial intimacy. All those whiteboard sessions puzzling out a problem, all those train rides in the Acela Quiet Car to NYC. The 1am Shake Shack burgers at the Kuwait airport while waiting for the 2:30am Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. Weekend-deal calls sitting at our separate kitchen islands, wearing baseball caps since we’d been working all night and had no time for a shower. 

Until three weeks ago, when — poof! — work disappeared. 

As much as I am enjoying turning my focus to what makes my heart sing, I miss this. I miss the side-by-side struggle, puzzle, and celebration that filled my adult life… up until now.

Only in its absence am I realizing the degree to which my work community was essential for me to become who I am today. 

I’ve talked at length about the benefits of human connection and support, especially during the darkest times of the human experience (here, here, and here). But I can’t help but mull it over again, because the necessity and power of it still blows my mind.

Humans, like all other creatures, can’t grow in a vacuum. We need nutrients we can only get from external sources like calories, vitamins, and water. But also encouragement, compassion, and belief. There is something so impactful about others believing that you can do great things, and offering a helping hand as you climb towards that accomplishment. 

These days I’m less motivated by the big, fancy accomplishments that fueled my corporate career, but I am no less drawn to learning, growing, and evolving. So how dumb would it be if I just rolled over and said, “Oh well, that period in my life is kaput. Goodbye community and day-to-day friendships! Time to do it on your own again, Deagle!”

Oh, that sneaky, old, you’re-all-alone-in-this-world voice, sensing weakness and filling the space with the poison gas of “do it all by yourself!” 

Sit down. Shut up.

“Alive, awake, participatory, and engaged.”

As I stalk the suburban savannah for new friends, I internally chant these words. It’s become a sort of mantra to remind myself that I have control over my mindset, my perspective, my experience, and my outcomes. 

Since 2024 Sue is all about being deliberate, I’m not going to wait until I get lonely to go looking.  I’m going to create opportunities for the connection that is so central to my wellbeing.

After a little navel-gazing, I have decided that the community “nutrients” I crave are: shared stories, a sense of shared success from achieving common goals, and most of all, laughter.

So here’s my action plan:

* I’m adding depth, time, and attention to my long standing friendships. Takis and I are walking the trails of the Potomac (with the pups Poppy and Scooter!) every Monday morning. Luanne and I are discussing everything from the quagmire of daughter-raising to the head-scratching trend of women our age opting out of the full-time grind. Last week, I took the two-hour drive north to Harrisburg to lunch with Pam, because connection is worth it.

* I’ve always been resistant in a way I can’t explain to online community. Maybe it’s just in my Gen X blood. Maybe I’m just nervous or unsure. Either way, I’m challenging the instinct to not engage. I receive so many heartfelt comments here on Substack and also on LinkedIn. I’m not sure how to turn these into the community I crave, but there are real people behind those pixels. I’m going to lean in and see what happens.

* I’m also opening my mind about where I can find in-person community, starting at the gym! For years I’ve been throwing kettlebells around with Kavon at our 6am, one-on-one workouts. Between sets, we talk about everything from philosophy to pop culture. And though I’d never gone before, he has group classes. In other words, a community premade by someone I like and trust; all I have to do is plug in! After just two of his group classes, I’ve swapped book recs with Colleen and had coffee with Shonna.

I never analyzed friendships until now — they simply unfolded. 

But at 55, I don’t have the time nor patience to just “hope for the best.” 

However, I also don’t have total control over this situation. I can’t force connection — chasing women who picked up similar self help books out of Barnes & Noble, screaming that we should be friends. There’s a balance here, a dance of agency and mystery that would be futile for me to pretend doesn’t exist. 

Furthermore, even if I managed to ensnare enough people to fill an entire C-suite, I wouldn’t be able to replicate my work family. And if the cost would be many sleepless nights staring at spreadsheets, I think I’m ok with that. So once again, I’m faced with a hole where something loving used to be — instead of Mike-shaped, it’s work-family-shaped — and neither the ability nor alternative to quickly fill it.

Option C it is: getting curious about new versions of friendship, while simultaneously allowing what I already have to take up even more space in my heart. I think of how my most supportive and beloved friends live oceans away (shout out to you, my loves in South Africa, London, Germany, Hawaii!). Our yearly catch ups, exchanged emails, one-line texts are enough to move me, boost me, encourage me onwards to pursue my dreams. 

Just because it is different doesn’t mean it is not good. 

I don’t know what my new group of friends is going to look like. I don’t know if it’ll be a group, or a few close friends I have weekly coffee dates with. I don’t know if it’ll include a book club, or if we’ll watch Netflix docuseries together. I don’t know if they’ll understand my corporate wonk jokes, or if we’ll both like art museums and book signings.

But I’m not going to limit it. In fact, I’m going to do the opposite: allow myself to be surprised.

We don’t know if we like something until we try it. And there’s still so much more to friendship, to community, to connection I have to explore.

Showing up and trusting the mystery,

Sue

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

“Oh my god, mom, enough already!!” Kendall furtively looked over her shoulder to see if anyone in the restaurant could have possibly missed what I had said.

“I’ve been googling small kits, like the one that band had in Colorado. Can I show you what I found?”

She’d heard this before, but in the confines of our own home. This was the first time she’d had to bear me publicly admitting I wanted to learn to play the drums.

It’s not like my dream has been a secret. In the last year, I’ve purchased a set of drum sticks from the local music store. I told Kendall’s best friend my plan. I watched Count Me In on Netflix a dozen times, along with every YouTube video I could find on Taylor Hawkins (RIP). I’ve even been practicing my air-drum-playing in the car to Queen’s Radio Ga Ga. Kendall had stomached all of it. But this? This was too much — the final unforgivable sin of sharing my dream excitedly at volume 10 in the middle of a crowded restaurant. 

“This is beyond weird. The drums? I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Especially not in public.”

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Enthusiasm over anything other than a sports team? Dorky. Embarrassing. Shameful.

Shut it down.

I’ve had many a quirky, out-of-the-mainstream dream. 

Backpacking through Scandinavia, getting a late-in-life Econ PhD, living in Antarctica.

However, until recently very few of these ideas made it off the cutting room floor… even without Kendall’s “help”. For the last forty-odd years, anything that didn’t directly contribute to my goals I’ve kiboshed as silly or frivolous.

Goodbye enjoyment of life, hello adulthood. This is just how the world works… right? As you get older, you have less time for fun things because you are too busy with serious things like email and retirement plans and oil changes. Aka watching your life get narrower before your very eyes, but pretending everything is great.

Meanwhile enthusiasm, the emotion that could turn everything around, is looked down upon. Enthusiasts — whether of model trains, dog breeds, or Taylor Swift — are judged as a little kooky at best. And at worst, they are seen as time-wasting wack-a-doodles contributing nothing to the world. (Except for sports. Being a sports enthusiast makes you manly and cool.)

So why are we so afraid to be enthusiastic?

What is so godawful about “having or showing intense and eager enjoyment”, as the Oxford Dictionary puts it?

* We don’t want people to think we care too much about something.

Showing we care about something more than is “normal” makes us an outlier. A weirdo. Then, the ‘in crowd’ (as if such a group really existed) might ex-communicate us and we’ll die alone. Conformity wins the day and we tamp down what makes our heart sing.

* We don’t like feeling so much… of anything.

Even though enthusiasm is generally a pleasant emotion, it can be overwhelming. And since it’s a feeling rather than a logical decision, it makes us feel like we are out of control. When we let enthusiasm take over, our rational minds have to take a backseat. So shutting down enthusiasm and trading it back for control seems safer. And joyless. But we’ve learned to live without joy, right? So what’s the big deal? 

* Enthusiasm is unrealistic.

There’s no room for the goofy magic of a nonsensical passion. We are too busy worrying about the kids (been there!), the job (been there!), the bad things that can happen in life (been there, done that!) to loosen up enough to enjoy a light-hearted pastime. Excitement feels like a stretch. Enthusiasm is surely unattainable. 

Seems like enthusiasts have a whole lot more courage than the rest of us.

I don’t think everyone needs to lose their spouse, part ways with their job, and totally redefine their identity to reclaim enthusiasm…

But it’s working for me!

I’m 55 and retired. I’ve got no public image to manage, no mile-long to-do lists, and kids who are rarely home to roll their eyes at my antics. Plus, if no one’s life is on the line, I give no f*cks. The world is my drum kit.

However, all my cockamamie hobbies are just conduits for what I’m really after — being unapologetically engaged in something that makes me feel alive.

As pumped as I am to head bang like Dave Grohl, I am mostly enthusiastic about enthusiasm! I’m excited for excitement's sake. I’m done being a stiff, grumpy, practical aka pessimistic adult. It’s not that fun and, contrary to popular grown-up opinion, I don’t think it’s helping anyone.

When I’m enthusiastic, not only am I more alive, I am also more compassionate, more open-minded, more patient, more supportive, more dedicated. Enthusiasm might make me seem a little kooky, but it also brings out the best in me.

This is the version of myself that I want showing up to the “let’s change the world” party.

Enthusiasm’s fundamental purity and honesty bring me back to what lights me up. It’s like I’m plugged into the sun, radiating joy and potential. Self-imposed limits fall away — “I don’t have time. It’s not important enough. What will the neighbors say?” — and the feeling is contagious.

The more I’m in touch with the child-like energy of enthusiasm, the more I can spread it to others. It’s like my excitement leapfrogs, lily pad to lily pad, to the people in my orbit. They don’t just get a better hug, a better story, a better listening ear. They get a spark to ignite the flame of their own enthusiasm, then they take it from there.

I realize I’m trading in pantsuits for drum sticks, international meetings for purposefully frivolous activities, and now I’m talking about the impact I can have.

But the world has so many serious people in serious suits. I think it would do society some good if we could lighten up a bit, take ourselves less seriously, and maybe even enjoy life sometimes.

So how about I count you in?

Ba-dum-tuss,

Sue

(It’s a drum joke in case you missed it.)

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

I woke up on my first work-less Monday from a smattering of stress dreams. I lost my retainer! Oh wait, I don’t have a retainer. I lost my engagement ring! Oh wait, my engagement ring has been in the safe deposit box since 2018. 

I shook off these wisps and focused on my regular morning mental scan. 

Where are the kids? Kendall fast asleep in her dorm at Tulane. Connor fast asleep somewhere in Connecticut on his a capella tour. 

Check. 

Next, scan for work challenges to be solved that day. 

Um… well… none. Empty space where worried rumination, problem solving, planning used to be. 

In a muscle-memory attempt to get my adrenaline going, I punched the lower left corner of my iPhone screen. My Gmail app now took the place of the deleted Outlook icon.

A handful of messages loaded. Nothing urgent. Nothing terribly important. 

I never enjoyed waking up to a truckload of emails with minor and sometimes major dilemmas to be managed. But the routine had comfort in its familiarity. Without my morning cup of “oh s**t”, followed by a big plate of to-do tasks, I felt unmoored… 

Without a job, what am I going to do with myself?

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

I kicked off Flail Week with a packed weekend. 

I didn’t have time to think about all that was missing, there was too much to do! A talk from one of my favorite authors & substackers, , followed by an overnight trip to NYC for CeCe’s birthday, Connor’s a capella concert, and cappuccinos in Central Park with Kelly. I even snuck in a visit to the MOMA to see the Picasso at Fountainbleau exhibit.

But could I maintain the momentum when I returned home? How would I feel once I got back to the treehouse and stared at my laptop-less desk? A phone that had ceased ringing? A non-existent work email inbox? No problems to solve, teammates to mentor, spreadsheets to review, work trips to plan.

That Monday morning, staring at my Gmail, tumbleweeds rolling through it, on the precipice of freaking out because I had so much time on my hands… I threw my head back and laughed. Hard. 

Come on, Deagle. You’ve survived far worse. 

Yes, my job at V2X is leaving a massive hole — you could even say gaping hole — in my life. And yes, one reaction to that emptiness could be to try to fill it as fast as possible. But is staying in rushrushrush mode actually making my life better? Or is it just what I’ve become used to? 

When Mike disappeared from my life, I didn’t try to fill the gap, the Mike-shaped hole, by finding another Mike. I can’t exactly tell you why… though it probably had something to do with the mountain of grief on my chest that wouldn’t let me forget what I had lost, no matter what I tried. Maybe it was easier for me to build something totally incomparable so I couldn’t compare.

For whatever reason, I chose the unknown. And from the slow, tedious restructuring of my inner and outer worlds, The Luminist was born. 

Instead of interpreting this job-shaped-hole solely as a loss, I’m choosing to see fertile soil, dark and loamy, ready to nurture something new.

Back to Monday morning: I closed Gmail and opened the clock app. 

I set my regular 20-minute timer and meditated, thoughts wandering all over the place as usual. At least that hasn’t changed! 

Then I leisurely got out of bed. Put my gym clothes on. Slung some kettlebells around. Ran up and down the stairs. Stretched. Never once did I look at the time. I let my inspiration, my creativity, my curiosity paint the empty canvas of my day without a plan or goal.

After five days of this experiment, here’s what I “accomplished”:

I took an online micro-blogging class.I went to a Zoom study hall with other creators.I talked to a lawyer to help me set up an LLC for The Luminist.I went to a new doctor to help me refocus on my health. I lifted, ran, swam, hiked, walked, yoga’d.I shoveled snow.I watched a dumb movie.I talked to friends. I talked to strangers. I ate more protein. I cuddled a puppy.I took my time. I bought more post-it notes then I’ll ever use. I stayed up way past my bedtime and self-hosted a solo slumber party. I turned off my 6am alarm for the next day. I turned off my 6am alarm for good. I bought a new body wash to reset my mornings (grapefruit and sea salt!), telling my body that my mind is in a new chapter. I watched four NFL games. I sold my fancy car.I worked at the kitchen island. I worked on the couch. I worked anywhere but my office — which I left in flail-mode until the urge comes over me to clean it. (Hasn’t happened yet.)

I realize that not all transitions are the same.

And I don’t want to make anyone who is struggling through a transition feel worse. 

However, I am challenging the notion that we need to meet all transitions, especially job transitions, solely with dread. 

There is part of me that wants to panic right now — the part that watched her friends’ parents then her own dad get laid off, one by one, from the local steel mill in western Pennsylvania many decades ago. So even though I lead a very, very good life these days, I still wrestle with a scarcity mindset.

It would be so easy to let that mindset rule this moment. But that wouldn’t get me anywhere. (Literally. I’d cut back expenses, get a job I didn’t love, and hardly travel.) I’d also miss this opportunity to create something brand new. Externally, sure, but I’m more excited about the internal changes that are possible.

For example:

* I never liked waking up with an adrenaline rush, so now I’m meditating first thing in the morning instead. What else about my daily schedule can change to suit me and my natural rhythms?

* I don’t live in scarcity, so scarcity anxiety won’t be making any major decisions. How will this affect my priorities and how I spend my time?

* Besides making sure the kids are happy and healthy, my only goal is to make the most of this one wild and precious life. So I’m not following any prescribed paths from here on out. I’m finding my own way. How will I decide which path to take? 

* If I’m not on a prescribed path, how will I feel accomplished and/or successful? Are those markers even meaningful to me anymore? Do I need a yardstick at all?

I already know what I want to focus on. The Luminist obviously. But with what strategies, structures, habits, goals? That I don’t know. Until now, I’ve always had lines that I was supposed to be coloring within.

What I’m facing isn’t a hole, it is an opening. So I’m going to be like Picasso: turn the negative space into my canvas; see what wants to take shape when the rules only exist to be broken.

I spent my life running away, planning away, achieving away from scarcity. But now I’m being drawn to something. 

Drawn to a life that feels more like mine. 

I may have lost Outlook, but I traded it for a newfound… Inlook. Yep, I know, that’s not a real word. But go with me here. It’s a feeling, an about-face, a wake-up call that I am now alone with myself. No app to distract me. No path to follow. Nothing to take me outside myself. 

Alone with myself… And alone with my power. 

I’ve moved mountains while living in patterns and mindsets that don’t actually serve me. So now what can I do, when everything in my life is by my design?

To shedding the old, and making space for the new,

Sue

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

Writing and reflecting happen on the far side of change, once we’ve rowed across the choppy lake and are putting bandaids on our blisters and Ben Gay on our backs. Not during. Not in the messy middle. Which is exactly where I am right now, making a giant life change.

Last Friday was my last day at V2X. My last day of “working for the man” for the foreseeable future.

I’m mid-leap. Mid-chasm! I’m confident I’ll make it to the other side. Maybe the landing will be wobbly, maybe I’ll pitch forward slightly onto one knee and scrape my palms from bracing my fall. But I know, just a moment later, I’ll launch forward with adrenaline and purpose to build my next stage of life. I look longingly towards that day. I know from experience it is out there, on the horizon. But it’s not here yet.

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

I’ve lovingly dubbed this week — the week I’m giving myself to slosh around the messy middle without worrying about direction, momentum, schedules — as “Flail Week”.

Because I can’t possibly be expected to organize my thoughts during Flail week, I’m just going to share some feelings and stories from my last week of work. It may feel a little disjointed — just like life sometimes. Bear with me. I know I can count on you.

Feelings

Face-breaking smiles one second, when a kind word is shared about my personal impact in someone’s life. Followed immediately by buckets of tears, when a kind word is shared about my personal impact in someone’s life.

Sheesh. I’m running up and down the scales of the human experience, between curious, joyful, scared, disgusted (mostly with myself), and full of love. It’s exhausting.

You know this kind of emotion, when it feels like your guts are being carved out by some curvy knife used in Japanese samurai movies. I’m giving myself permission to feel it. But I don’t love the feelings one bit. Yes, yes, I am always telling you that feeling my emotions allowed me to process my past losses. But that does not mean I’m like, “Oh, sudden overwhelming sorrow, so glad you are here! We love having you! Crying in front of strangers is so much fun!”

Dear lord, no. But we are draconian about going  ‘through’ feelings, not ‘around’.  So emotions, you get to stay as long as you wish. Damn you. Thank you.

Identity

My last day was filled with “how are you doing?” and “we will miss you’’ and “I know this must be hard for you” and “you crushed it here, you made us feel seen.” Topped with a big ol’ helping of “you’ve got this! We are cheering you on for your next adventure!”

Coworkers, you think I gave you something… but you helped a widow form a new identity. And that identity does not disappear, because human connection does not disappear. The fossil record of your impact on me lives deep in my bones. 

My friend Karl’s ‘song of the week’ popped into my email as I was fielding some of these notes. Boston: Don’t Look Back. “Did he send that song for me?” I wondered…

His text arrived not two minutes later. “I just sent out the song of the day. Specially for you.”

Energy

We can look at our future when it is uncertain and unknown and simultaneously be excited and scared.

We have to leave room for both. We have to be looking at the horizon and say “well, hell, I’ve looked into the future before and haven’t had a clue what would happen, and I survived and thrived. I’ll do it again. I haven’t the foggiest idea how. But I’m up for the challenge.”

Change — chosen or unchosen — is an act of creation… in which you must participate fully.

Even if that means just hanging on by your fingernails. When things change, energy is released, new things are built. Volcanos erupt, spewing their magma that becomes new land, rich with the nutrients of where it came from. New soil to plant the idea of our new self, our evolution, our embodying of our next season.

But we can’t sit around saying, “But I liked it better befoooooore! I don’t like this new land, new soil, new configuration! Make it stop.”

We have to embrace that energy. We have to let the energy move us toward whatever comes next. The ashes of ‘what was’ become raw material for us to create something even more exquisite.

Courage

After a particularly hard final work call, I hung up and burst into tears. Apparently the jumping jacks I had done before the call, attempting to clear my body of some of the pent-up uncertainty, hadn’t finished the job.

Interrupting my sobs, my computer started chiming. My good work friend Bill, a pal who I’d known since my very first work trip to Kuwait in 2017, was reaching out. I looked at the Teams call, blinked, and against all my hunker-down, “we are all alone in this world” instincts, I punched the green telephone button.

His calm face filled the screen. I couldn’t pull myself together, so I just kept on crying. He sat there and watched. “It’s hard,” I said. “I know,” he said. And he just listened. 

So many of us — the person typing this included — have courage when it’s convenient. A waffley, on occasion, at-our-discretion kind of courage. But Bill sat and watched his friend process something hard for her. He accompanied me (via Teams for god’s sake!) till I wore myself out. He didn’t let me go until I found peace, and he knew I would be okay.

Change

Rummaging through the photo section on my iPhone (how is it somehow so complicated to anyone older than millennial??), I found pics from my first overseas business trip at V2X. Spain, Turkey, Kuwait, May 2017.

I don’t know who the hell was taking those pictures, but there is not a single human being in them. A few camels. Chain link fence. Palm trees. My seat on the airplane?

Fast forward to the photo record of my trips in the past few years and there are people, people, more people. Because people have become the heart and soul of what I do.

We don’t often get a chance to see photographic evidence of our hearts changing, our minds expanding, our values being ripped down so that something better could be built there, like my Treehouse on a beautiful piece of land. But there it is, in my freaking phone. The evidence of my transformation.

Whereas 2017 Sue believed that she was in it alone, 2024 Sue believes in nothing more than people.

I was just scared before.

But the people that filled my last seven years showed me I had nothing to be afraid of. And in the wise words of the Village People in Y.M.C.A, “No man, does it all by himself.” I finally figured that out. No costumes required.

I am joyfully, curiously, anxiously leaving the ‘known’ behind. That known being almost seven years at V2X… but also 33 years of being a corporate wonk (minus 16 weeks of maternity leave and two years of grad school). Round it up to a solid three decades of building a career, honing a craft, making lifelong friends (and enemies!). Failing, succeeding, learning, teaching. Providing for my family, creating an identity. 

Although I am moving forward with verve and vigor, I haven’t got the faintest clue what is next. None. I know what I want to happen, what I aspire to. But the path I’m now traveling on isn’t a path anymore… At least I have the compass of my purpose to keep me oriented while I wander around in the dark!

In other words, I’m suddenly living in a keen combination of certainty and anxiety. But I’m not doing it alone. I feel safe to explore the darkness of the future, knowing I have a massive, love-woven, courageous community to lean on whenever I’m feeling lost.

And that makes me feel more alive than I ever have before. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you,

Sue

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

“How do you feel about poetry, Connor?” “I hate it,” was his matter-of-fact reply. 

Wrapping up our Colorado Rockies holiday vacation, Connor was sprawled out on our condo’s rickety pull-out couch. I sat catty-corner on the unoffensive, bland, tan sectional as we watched NFL football on mute. Nintendo Switch in hand, he was multitasking over a Pokémon game while I underlined every freaking sentence in the new book in my lap: The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives by Jennifer Michael Hecht.

“What do you hate specifically about poetry?” I probed.

“I hate poetry because it's abstract. I like concrete. I like when you can actually understand what the heck they are saying.”

Dude, I feel you. 

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I grew up in rural western Pennsylvania. By rural, I mean our football stadium was a grassy expanse of turf surrounded by metal bleachers carved from an as-far-as-the-eye-can-see cornfield. Horticulture was a mandatory class. My favorite outfit was a pair of baby-blue, thin-wale corduroy overalls.

We were not exactly studying the great poets. In fact, I couldn’t have named even one. College and grad school had less corn fields but no more poetry. Somehow it didn’t come up in cost accounting or corporate finance. So I blissfully and blindly lived most of my existence on planet earth with poetry playing zero role. 

Until there was a time in my life where ‘concrete’ failed me. ‘Abstract’ was all that remained.

If I was reading this post I’d be like, wtf… poetry? 

Are you f*ing kidding me? No need to read further. I’ll pass. Poetry is for hippies in flowing dresses with feathers in their hair. I don’t even wear dresses. And feathers? Enough said. My pride and joy are my new Adidas Gazelle’s the kids got me for Christmas. People who wear Adidas do not read poetry. People whose mother tongue is spreadsheets and powerpoints, balance sheets and income statements do not read poetry. People who have to get s**t done and raise two mourning pre-teens do not read freaking poetry. 

But grief grabs your understanding of reality off your face, stomps on it, then throws it in a ditch. You’re blind as a bat, trying to make sense of the blurry colors and shifting shapes that once were so clear. That wouldn’t be so bad if you at least had your other mental faculties — memory, logic, deduction. But “facts” drift like dreams through your consciousness, refusing to be comprehended or remembered.

I recall a moment when, if I had not been so tired, I would have been terrified. I could barely read the children’s Tylenol directions. This is not an exaggeration. So the fragmentary nature of poetry — its borderline nonsensicality — made it welcoming. There was no way to get it wrong. 

I still don’t understand half of the words of many of the poems I read. But the feeling I do. 

Plus, poem’s are short! When your attention span is destroyed, you can take one in lickety split and let the words bubble around in your brain. Then get back to scheduling the tire rotation, fighting with the insurance company, trying to cancel your dead husband’s credit cards, and go to the grocery store. 

Seven years later and twenty books of poetry deeper, I’m a convert. But not just for poetry. For things that:

* Feed my brain differently

* Explain the world in a unique way

* Elucidate feelings rather than just explain facts

* Speak to the intangible and mysterious aspects of life

* Ask different questions, better questions, about what it means to be alive

For a long time I’ve heard Krista Tippet on the On Being podcast say she wanted to “live the questions.”

And I was like, “What the hell does that even mean??”

Then I saw the same theme in The Wonder Paradox. And finally I heard an internet dude say that he wanted to help people ask “better questions”. 

Ask better questions. Not find better answers. 

We cling to answers, to facts, out of fear. Having a fact in hand is like having our reality glasses on straight. We can see the situation clearly and therefore make a calculated decision about what to do next. But we put too much confidence in our vision. We don’t really know what’s around the bend, what the weather will be like on the way, or who’s going to have a heart attack mid-journey. We are not actually looking for answers, we are looking for a guarantee.

When Connor was born, he took his first breath and blew out the bottom of his lungs. 

For better or worse, it happened to JFK’s son too, way back in 1963. But they didn’t have a cure for it then, so the baby boy died. The Kennedys then poured a fortune into researching “infant respiratory distress syndrome”. So my son lived. He left the NICU when so many babies do not. He became the ultimate-frisbee-playing, a-capella-singing 21 year old that I get to show off on my blog.

On the other hand, fourteen years later, Mike died. No warning. No symptoms. No nothing. 

Those are the facts. But they answer none of the questions.

Hecht says in The Wonder Paradox, “The insight that we solve life’s questions by living, solved me.” 

We’re looking for fast facts as answers, when we should be slowly building our own understanding of life. I can’t tell you why Connor survived or why Mike didn’t. But I can answer my why. Why do I go on?

Because life, while terrible and tragic, is also glorious and gorgeous. And since I’m already here, I am going to make the most of it.

It’s a cliche answer, worthy of a high-schooler’s first stab at poetry. But I mean it with all my heart. 

Maybe that’s what poetry really gave me.

Permission to sometimes set aside the facts and instead focus on the feelings. 

Feelings like the unbelievable pride that swells in my chest when I hear my son sing with those whole, healed lungs. And also the love-heartbreak-love I have for Mike, which is simultaneously trying to crush me and set me free. 

How can I honor these feelings and the truth that they carry?

How do I become my own answer to all that I cannot fix or solve or figure out?

How do I unfold in response to, in the presence of, these endless mysteries?

In Leaves of Grass (um, nonsensical title, anyone?), Walt Whitman is questioning what the heck life is for, then he replies:

That you are here — that life exists, and identity.That the powerful play goes on, and you might contribute a verse.

To contributing your own verse,

Sue

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Several years ago, I made a rule about dessert. It was in an effort to decelerate the slow creep of weight on my middle-aged frame, maintaining the ability to do a forward fold in yoga without suffocating myself.

“I will only eat dessert if tiramisu or chocolate mousse is on the menu!” I proclaimed to my buddy Mike, since we did many fancy work dinners together. I find that I am a much better light switch (either on or off) than I am a dimmer (just one more bite! And another!). Default decision making — the kind that doesn’t require engaging my wayward and unreliable brain — helped me be more deliberate in my choices without effort or temptation. 

“Deagle Do’s and Don’ts!” Mike proclaimed in response. We made a game out of the entire thing. 

While this decision was initially about a long-term goal (and feels dangerously close to a resolution…), its biggest impact ended up being in my day-to-day life. Pleasure — guilt-free pleasure — returned to dessert. I’d flip to the back of the menu and quickly scan for my two options. Seeing one, I’d do a little happy dance and spend the rest of the meal looking forward to tiramisu or mousse melting in my mouth. If I saw neither however, I still felt pleased. I wasn’t missing one of my favorite desserts. I was taking care of my body. Win-win baby.

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Facing down the barrel of 2024, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I want more of in the coming year.

For the last five years, I’ve picked a word of the year to provide some guardrails that keep me on track, but without setting me up for the inevitable failure that follows so many resolutions. (I love this practice so much that I wrote an entire dang post about how and why to do it last week!)

And for the first time since starting this practice in 2018, I’ve noticed a shift in my mindset.

Instead of imagining all the proverbial and literal mountains I want to summit, my mind's eye is drawn to the ephemeral but inescapable blip of the here and now. 

I’m not focused on doing at all really. I’m focused on living. What do I choose to fill my time when I’m painfully aware that any moment could be my last? What defaults, frameworks, scaffolding can I put into place to make decisions on how I spend my time as effortless as dessert?

Old Sue wanted to achieve, and that poor girl did a lot of gutting it out to make that happen. She framed out plans of attack, steps, milestones, goals, etc. — all focused on getting ‘there’. A combination of sheer will and OCD planning helped me achieve some of my biggest goals. I’m proud of those moments in my life. I’m just no longer wired that way.

I am no longer worried so much about there. I’m about here… Aka the only thing that life has promised me. 

How do I nurture the aliveness in my day-to-day life, rather than trying to achieve things that I hope will make me feel more alive? (But which are a poor substitute. Achievement brings security to be sure, but that security can only take you so far. Just ask Mike Deagle.)

So no more getting lost in the future, living for to-do lists, building mighty walls that aren’t worth a damn against the forces of nature. 

2024 will be about getting the most out of the present.

I’ve already shifted into presence in some aspects of my life; in others, I want to lean in harder.

Right now the kids and I are in a tweeny phase. I’m still the sun that my Jupiter-sized children revolve around. But it’s not going to be that way forever. 

The time will come when the kids partner up, sail far afield, and generally become adults with lives of their own. It will probably feel like a blink of an eye before they are the blazing centers of solar systems themselves.

Given this inevitability, I’ve made the deliberate choice to revel in the time I have left as the center of their universe. I visit them once a month. When they are home and ask me to do something, even if it seems unappealing and I’d rather stay in my fuzzy pajamas reading a book, I say yes. I want to soak up every last minute we have one-on-one. Where I have their undivided attention… and they have mine. I want to listen to every last meandering story they tell. I want to nod and support and not give advice. I want to watch dumb movies, listen to dumb music, laugh at dumb TikToks.

On the other side of the generation gap are my parents. As a fiercely independent woman, I have not always been the best daughter. I was aware of it, frustrated by it, but stuck in a “well, I just suck” mindset. No more. I’m going to be the daughter that suits my capabilities and expresses my love. I’m going to leave the blame and shame and endless awe-struck comparing myself to other daughters behind. I’m going to lean into my own strengths — sending books, funny texts, strategic visits, kid pics. I’m going to stop judging myself by other daughters and just be me. That’s the person my parents want to see anyway. 

And lastly, The Luminist.

This coming year I have big hopes for growing the life-changing impact of TL. But I’m not going to do that by setting Substack subscriber goals, LinkedIn impression rates, metrics on keynote speeches or podcasts. 

Instead, I am going to consume the most nourishing, invigorating, inspiring inputs to make the most nourishing, invigorating, inspiring TL outputs: 

* I’m going to read books that may seem far afield of TL on the surface, but that speak to the human condition and deepen my understanding of it.

* I’m going to have more conversations around loss, with loved ones and with strangers, taking in as many stories as I can from other people, so I can tell them to you. 

* I’m going to consume art, music, theater, movies, exhibitions, and learn how to create better stories myself.

* I’m going to engage as fully as I can with the “small” moments of life as an experiment, and report that back to you about that as well.

In other words, I’m going to branch out in thoughtful ways that enrich rather than dilute TL. I want to become a walking prayer of TL’s mission, not a hammer to pound my message into people whether they like it or not. 

And that means focusing on what matters most: learning to craft and convey a message that moves you, connects with you, awakens a lost part of you, brings you closer to your own aliveness, dear reader.

I don’t have a tactical plan for any of this. Old Sue is standing in the bleacher seats, waving her arms and assuring me I can reach more people if I just plan plan plan! But she’s a much smaller part of me now. And I love her but she needs to pipe down. Connecting, listening, presence, authenticity, and vulnerability are the pillars of aliveness. They will support TL better than any strategic plan ever could.

Like a quiver of arrows, there is only so much ammunition we have to shape our lives.

So this year, my word is ‘deliberate’.

I originally was leaning toward words that spoke of expansion, transformation, mystery, even mysticism. But life doesn’t need me to fly away from it. Life wants me to burrow more deeply into it. 

That’s why 2024 will be a year of focusing my time, my energy, my heart, even my OCD mind on the things that bring me closest to the technicolor fabric of reality.

Because I don’t want to shoulda-coulda-woulda the next month, year, decade, or season of my life. I know what matters. Time to act like it — no excuses. Deliberateness is the bedrock upon which a good life is built. 

I know, I know — “you can’t control how life unfolds!” is one of my favorite refrains. But I can still choose what I focus on amidst the chaos. Instead of planning the future, I’m promising Future Sue that I’ll do my best to squeeze every last drop out of what she loves, before it’s too late.

We pull an arrow from our quiver. We load it with care. We aim. We focus on its intended target. We pull back the string with a surge of energy. Then we release. No movement wasted. No regrets. Even if we miss, at least we gave it our best shot.

Here’s to a year of being deliberate, and the fruits of living it every day, 

Sue

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

I don’t do resolutions. I found, like many people, that they don’t stick. So I’ve subbed in “word of the year”.

To me, a resolution is something I am going to achieve by the end of the year. I’m gonna read a certain number of books, lose a certain number of pounds, add a certain number of people to my network. It has KPIs (corporate wonk speak = key performance indicators). Measure measure measure. Succeed or fail.

Word of the year (WOTY) is more a vibe, a way of living, a theme to keep at the front of my consciousness. It can either be a way I want to show up (‘fearless’ was my word for 2022) or a force in the world I want to ride (I chose ‘momentum’ for 2023). And there is no way to measure it! Hallelujah! 

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Rather than a pass/fail test, my chosen word is:

* A touchstone for the energy I want to build that year

* Motivation to try things out of my comfort zone

* Inspiration for the evolution of my state of mind from Jan 1 to Dec 31

* A reason to give myself a pat on the back when I feel I make progress

* A gentle guardrail for when I feel I’m losing the plot of my life

My chosen word is neither a prescription nor a platitude. I’m not promising to do anything three days a week for the next 12 months, but I’m also not hanging a cursive-calligraphy Pinterest sign in my entryway and immediately forgetting it exists. My word is more like my guiding star. I will face storms and mountain passes while following it, but I will stay the course.

Past WOTYs prove this point. The year of ‘abundance’ (2019) was both a year of jaw-dropping greatness (big wins at work!) and stomach-churning awfulness (big mistakes at work!). Abundant good. Abundant bad. I picked it. I had to live with its manifestation. 

In the year of ‘momentum’ (2023), TL grew its reach, but I also had to surrender to the flailing feeling that comes with moving at high speeds. Having a WSJ video crew in my house with no control over the end product, for example, tested my ability to not slam on the breaks.

Like all important decisions in my life, I pick my WOTY with sticky notes, my vanity mirror, and a black sharpie. 

The process is a little unorthodox, but it’s consistently worked in my n=1, non-replicable, subjective studies.

Step 1: I trust my gut.

Step 2: I trust the universe to give me signs.

(Don’t tell Corporate Sue I make personal decisions like this. She’ll faint.)

The process starts sometime in December with “opening the channel”. I keep an ear out for conceptual words that inspire me, speak to a deep part of me, excite me, maybe scare me a little bit. These words get a sticky note near the bottom of the mirror.

If I hear the word again — in a song, from a friend, in a headline — it moves up the mirror. If I find myself thinking about it randomly, it moves up the mirror. If the word starts to feel dull after a week or two of seeing it every day, I toss it. 

By Christmas, I usually have 2-3 frontrunners. At this point, the process is entirely by feel. What word feels like it’s tugging at me, challenging me, pulling me skyward? What word can I grasp my hands around? What word can I ride like a million balloons through the next 365 days?

What word gives the wide-open expanse of my future, my year ahead, just enough but not too much structure?

What word helps me become a better, truer version of me?

Funnily enough, my word of the year practice started because I was trying to be less myself.

I had gotten the feedback that I could practice being more even kneeled and less emotional at work. I’m a team player so I went all-in — ‘equanimity’ became my first WOTY in 2018. 

I didn’t know it then but ‘equanimity’ is just not me. Throughout 2018, I did my best to smooth the oscillations of my sine curve… and paid a price for it. Trying to be equanimous came to feel like caging parts of myself that I love — the loud-laughing, hard-fighting, big-loving parts of Sue.

You’d think that I would have dropped the WOTY practice after that, but the “failure” actually made clear how useful it was. Had I not returned over and over again to ‘equanimity’ — ritualistically touching its sticky note every time I opened my vanity mirror for my toothbrush — I never would have realized how much I treasure and enjoy the rollercoaster parts of my personality. I wouldn’t have come to embrace them. And I wouldn’t have asked them to mature either. Because there is a way of being on a rollercoaster without yanking everyone around with you.

In the end, WOTY turned what was an apparent weakness into a superpower. My emotions help me connect with strangers, colleagues, clients, REI shoe experts. I learned when and how to access them in a constructive way rather than being ruled by them. I found equanimity on the rollercoaster, because I knew there was no place I’d rather be.

I’ll share my word for 2024 next week, but this week I want to let the practice sink into your consciousness, dear reader.

We have an ENTIRE YEAR ahead of us (if everything goes alright). A year that is overflowing with endless possibility… but also endless uncertainty. Amidst all the hopes, fears, to-do lists, deadlines, and distractions, how do we get the most out of 2024?

I’m a tactician of loss and living. I can’t promise anyone more time on this planet, but I think I have a pretty good idea of how to make the most out of however much time we have left. 

Action, risk, decisions — all are key factors. 

The vibrant life we crave, though always within arms’ reach, won’t just fall into our laps. We have to take action toward it. And to do that, we have to pick a direction to march in. Even if it turns out to be the “wrong” direction (like equanimity for me), we can always turn and pivot. But until we set a tack, take a risk, make a mistake, collect some data, we’ll never know. We’ll just be waiting… doing the same thing we’ve been doing and hoping for a different result.

Let’s do something new this year. Let’s take a risk and walk away with the reward of experience, if not more. All it takes is tweaking your mindset, choosing to get out of autopilot and into aliveness.

So what do you want more of this New Year? What do you want to be more of?

What guiding star will hold you steady as you steer into the unknown?

What energy will you commit to noticing and cultivating more of, as a way of noticing and cultivating more engagement with the mystery and miracle of life?

To 2024,

Sue

P.S. Here are some of my and your favorite posts to help get the wheels turning about what really matters, and how to cultivate more of it in the coming year: 

* Allowing reality to be on your side. Surrender, the hard way and the easy way.

* Enough waiting to “rest in peace”. Appreciating the good things in life while we’re still around to do it.

* The beautiful, the painful, the dazzling. How I learned from life to be unafraid of loss.

* Choosing the road less traveled. A life of your own is worth the unknown.

* The radiance in dailiness. Grief taught me to see the magic in the “ordinary”. Let me show you an easier way.

* What are we actually afraid of? Why dissecting our fears around death & dying is key to living a better life.

* We are not islands. Releasing the myths of avoidance and isolation.

> Subscribe to have the Luminist delivered to your inbox every Saturday, in both written and audio format, at theluminist.substack.com.

“I think we sound like evangelists,” my patently un-evangelical English friend Paul said. “I think what people fail to realize is how beautiful it is on the other side.”  

He didn’t mean on the other side of this mortal coil. He meant on the other side of excruciating, gut-wrenching transformations. You know, the kind that life hands us. All of us. 

“I do sometimes see myself as an evangelist.” I responded. “Or something even more gnarly and in-your-face, like a prophet or a revolutionary. All I need is a beret and a goatee and I can do my best Che Guevara. I’m the Che Guevara of loss!” 

Let me say for the record that I’m not a communist, I don’t plan to become a martyr by getting shot by the Bolivian army, and I seriously doubt my mug will ever end up on a T-shirt. (Please dear lord, save me from this fate!)

But I’m all in for a role as a countercultural symbol of rebellion. Rebellion against the social norms, the taboos, and the false stories that imprison our expression and experience of loss.

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“The thing about being a revolutionary or a prophet,” I continued, “is that not everyone wants to hear it. People throw rocks at prophets.”

“People throw rocks at prophets…” Paul repeated, mostly to himself, deep in thought. He nodded. “Indeed they do.”

Rock throwers don’t necessarily hate prophets.

They hate how prophets make them feel. 

Indignant. Pissed off. Called out. Challenged. 

If we could make these prophets, these revolutionaries, just shut the hell up, we could go on with our lives as they are. Heads down, binging on Netflix, scrolling on social media, day after day after freaking day. No harm, no foul. 

But annoyingly, without our permission, prophets want more for us. They don’t want us to settle for the status quo, they want us to fight for more. Even if we have to give up the safety of our comfort zone to do it. 

Paul’s rebellion is becoming teetotal amidst a British cultural norm where drinking is part of the fabric and ‘fun’ of life. Every time he shows up with a club soda with lime, being present and engaged in the moment rather than wearing a lampshade and being the life of the party, others take this as a silent rebuke on their own lifestyle. They don’t want to be faced with the truth of their choice, now that Paul has made a different one.

This can make Paul very, very lonely. But he’d rather be lonely than oblivious, following his own inner compass — what makes him feel alive — rather than following the pack. 

When Paul and I reconnected after almost two years, it blew my mind that he was using almost identical language to describe his personal revolution. 

He said it was like “living in HD” — absurdly close to my favorite phrase “vibrant living”.  

Few people would compare giving up drinking to losing a loved one, and yet… We both lost a way of living that we thought we couldn’t live without. We both went through dark nights of the soul. We both weren’t sure if we would make it to the other side. And now, we both want to shout our revelations from the rooftops.

It’s fascinating to me that as a culture, maybe as a species in general, we do everything we can to make our lives smooth and predictable. We barricade ourselves into our comfort zones, settling for what we know, what is expected of us, what others before us have done — even if we don’t really like what promises to fill our lives for the next 10, 20, 50 years. 

As if the hell we know is better than the heaven we don’t. 

I can’t speak for Paul, but my personal revolution was not intentional. I got shoved out of complacency by Mike’s death. It’s ghastly to admit, but I often wonder if I would have found this electric way of living if Mike was still around.

As kids, we took leaps. 

Off tree branches, roofs, swings. Because we longed to loose our bodies from their human constraints and fly through the air. We didn’t worry about sticking the landing. We’d leave that up to fate. 

As we matured, we were told, “think before you speak, look before you leap, measure twice, cut once, etc, etc.” We learned well. Maybe too well. All we care about as adults is the landing. So unless we are forced to, we don’t take flight at all. We forgot that the leap, the uncertainty, even the fear are part of what makes living such a grand adventure in the first place. Feeling alive is nothing less than the agency to try and maybe fail… but the tenacity to at least try.

I don't want to be sitting around waiting for fate to happen to me. I want to happen to fate; I want to happen to destiny.

I want to use the little control I have on this planet to not build a box around my life, but to expand in the ways that exhilarate me, challenge me, fill my heart with passion and purpose.

Yes, it’s terrifying to be a revolutionary — to care this much about a way of living that puts me at odds with the status quo — but let’s be real. It’s terrifying to be alive at all. Take driving down a highway, flying in the sky — we’ve just desensitized ourselves to those fears. We’ve learned from experience that more often than not we’ll be just fine. And because of it we get to travel the world! 

But there isn’t just the outer universe to explore. There’s the one within us as well.

The inner expanse holds mysteries like:

* what we are truly capable of

* what really matters to us

* what we can do that no one else can do

* how we may actually be able to change the world

I wouldn’t say I’m courageous. I would say I’m terrified of dying without making the difference I know I’m capable of.

To the prophet within me, and to the prophet within you,

Sue

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