The Luminist

"You are getting younger... and everyone else is getting older." The words slipped out as I watched my mother buzz around her back garden in western Pennsylvania. While her friends were settling into their rocking chairs, she was still expanding — her curiosity and energy ready to burst the confines of her small-town life like roots breaking through an old clay pot.

When Mike and I suggested she move closer to us, she took a year to consider it. Then at 68, she packed up four decades of life and started fresh.

It was brutal.

Not because it was the wrong choice — she needed a life that could keep up with her. But often even the best decisions involve a period of transition… during which many of us feel utterly lost.

My mom’s transplanting recently came to mind while watching my editor Leona Waller go through her own move. They’re different ages, in different circumstances, but with same story: that queasy feeling of being pretty sure you’re exactly where you should be while simultaneously wondering what the hell you’ve done.

Since neither my mom or Leona are Libras (the zodiac of the chronically indecisive according to Leona), here’s what I’m thinking:

The discomfort of transition isn't a sign that we've chosen poorly, but evidence of our realignment.

We want these transitions to be simple math: right choice equals smooth landing. Instead, they're more like learning to walk again after a broken leg: necessary, ultimately healing, but nobody’s idea of a good time. And this realignment always takes longer than we want it to because it involves something that can’t be rushed: Us. Humans. Our emotions. The elusive feeling of being home.

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

Finding community is not the only aspect of transition that’s hard, but it clearly illustrates what makes it hard.

You can't force friendship any more than you can force a flower to bloom. You can create the conditions — show up, stay open, plant seeds of connection — but the actual alchemy of belonging happens on its own timeline.

This is what my mother discovered as she went about her days, diligently tending to potential connections like seedlings. She volunteered, took Zumba classes, joined a gardening group. She did everything "right," and still felt unmoored. Because just as a transplanted perennial needs time to establish itself before it flowers, we each need time to root into a new place.

We treat time like the enemy during these periods, begging it to move faster, to hurry us through the discomfort. But time isn't the active ingredient in transformation — we are. Time is just the space where the work happens. So while it's tempting to curse the neither-here-nor-there days, this is when we plant the seeds, water them daily, and pray.

Everything important is happening underground, invisible to the anxious gardener above.

I’m a year into my own community rebuilding after leaving my corporate career and beloved work family.

And even though I write about change for a living (insert eye roll at life's sense of irony), I’ve been so impatient with this transition.

My new communities feel like they are just starting to flower — monthly Zoom calls with kindred spirits scattered across continents, a group of "business hippies" in the UK who speak my language of both ambition and soul, creative collaborations through the Do Lectures community. But they don't yet have the worn-in comfort of my old relationships, the shorthand that comes from shared history.

It’s finally starting to sink in: we can't compare new soil to old roots. When we demand that new connections immediately replace old ones, we're asking saplings to provide the shade of mature trees.

(Funny how our progress metrics often say more about our fear of uncertainty than about how well we're actually doing.)

About a year after her move, my mother met Lynn and they became inseparable best friends. Not just because time passed, but because she kept showing up. She kept allowing herself to be both uncomfortable and hopeful.

Major life changes like moves and job transitions are essentially uprooting our sense of self and repotting it in different soil. How long does it take for roots to firmly grasp the new earth, to tap the ground water, to find the pockets of minerals and nutrients, to shift from surviving to thriving? As long as it takes.

The magic isn't in getting "good" at change — it's in learning to trust that today's consistency is tomorrow's garden.

To growing in new soil,

Sue

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

"This lady is insufferable." You can see it all over their face when I decline a cocktail and mention my yearly Dry January ritual. They're imagining me as some paragon of willpower and clean living. Meanwhile, in my head: "Who invented January anyway? Probably someone who really needed a drink."

I started this tradition five years ago, back when alcohol wasn't even my real vice. Food was my comfort zone — specifically the kind that comes wrapped in red and green foil during the holidays. But add a second glass of wine to the mix, and suddenly my willpower had left the building, probably hanging out at the nearest Cinnabon.

Yet, even though I chose this, every single year I'd count down the days until February 1st like a kid waiting for Christmas. I'd white-knuckle through corporate dinners with my club soda in its sweaty glass, watching everyone enjoying their bourbon and Beaujolais. I’d pace my house during lockdown, wondering if my entire family would actually benefit if I gave up this sober farce.

But this January? Different story.

Despite 2025 kicking off with enough global chaos to make a teetotaler reach for tequila, I haven't once thought "I wish I didn't do this stupid thing." That got me thinking — what changed?

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

My environment, for one.

I’m not in corporate America anymore. No more trying to bond with potential partners while nursing that same damn club soda that's fooling exactly no one. The drinking culture has changed too. Five years ago, ordering a non-alcoholic drink at a bar was like requesting they serve you motor oil. Now my local spots have entire mocktail menus.

But life always finds new, inventive ways to make one crave chemical disassociation…

The news about the midair collision over the Potomac hit home. First of all, it happened 30 miles from my house. Second of all, I fly a lot. And as the kids' remaining parent, there is nothing that causes my blood pressure to rise faster than imagining Connor and Kendall arranging my wake.

But reaching for the Malbec wasn't my first instinct when the story broke.

Turning off the TV was.

For once, I didn't need wine to face the headlines. I needed silence. So, I waited. I let the initial shock waves pass. I read the facts instead of watching footage of every detail, every theory, every heart-wrenching victim profile. I gave myself permission to feel it all on my own timeline.

I had the emotional reserves to pause and think in the face of overwhelming feelings. My tried-and-true coping strategies weren't new, but this January I could actually access them when I needed them. Funny how that works when you're not running on empty.

My corporate job didn't just require schmoozing — it demanded I be "on" for 60+ hours a week. Hard to replenish emotional reserves when you're on your last nerve, one minor crisis away from ordering whatever's on the top shelf.

So in the last year, my environment changed, the way I spent my time changed, and how I was able to relate to the stress of life changed.

I was feeling pretty bulletproof until two days before January ended…

I was writing at my kitchen island when water splashed across my hand.

I looked down to see the words of my carefully crafted post outline melting down the page, à la Salvador Dali.

And then I looked up.

The drip hadn't come from my glass. It came from my ceiling.

House disasters hit different when you're a widow. Every leaky pipe feels like it's targeting your carefully constructed sense of control.

I called my brother-in-law Richie to brainstorm. Together we traced possible water sources, me huffing clues to him as I ran up and down the stairs. Then I looked out a tiny square window in my bathroom and saw it.

Unlike Greenland or Norway, the polar ice cap covering my roof — a first time phenomenon due to a record-smashing DC winter — was not reduced by global warming. It was frozen solid. The only thing missing was a penguin colony.

For the next two hours, I attacked that ice sheet with my snow shovel, launching mini-icebergs into the yard below.

The dripping stopped.

A quick text from my builder Sam promising a roofing crew visit next week drained the last of my panic.

That evening, looking at my somewhat worse-for-wear ceiling, I realized something: I hadn't once thought "God, I need a drink."

On February 2nd, I had my first cocktail of 2025 with my lovely daughter at our favorite New Orleans haunt.

As I sipped that perfect tequila concoction (not my usual vodka gimlet, but when in Rome and all that) something clicked into place.

All those years of white-knuckling through Dry January weren't about alcohol at all. They were messages from my body, written in the language of cravings and constraints, trying to tell me something about my life.

The corporate dinners with which I sometimes struggled. The constant pressure to be "on." The endless effort to stay ahead in an industry that doesn't sleep. My body knew before my brain did — something had to give.

This year was easier not because I got better at saying no, but because I finally built a life that made me want to say yes.

Yes to space. Yes to things that light me up. Yes to seeing ceiling drips for what they are — home maintenance, not an existential crisis.

Turns out I wasn't fighting alcohol. I was fighting a life that made me want to numb out.

To building a life that fits,

Sue

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

Let’s get one thing straight: I'm a deeply rational person. I can explain NATO's command structure, quote Fairfax County's baffling building codes, and navigate insurance claims with surgical precision. I actually read instruction manuals. The whole way through. From a young age, I learned logic was the best security blanket — follow the rules, connect the dots, and life works out fine.

Then my kale-eating, never-skipping-a-workout, in-“perfect”-health (the doc said so) husband died of a heart attack, without warning or explanation…

When my battered brain came back online months later, I looked at the splintered shards of my best laid plans and thought:

This is not how life is supposed to work.

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

My conversion from a strict “it’s logical or it’s b******t” mindset to what you could call “mystery curious” was slow and subtle. But looking back it seems inevitable. The unexplainable first smashed my life into smithereens, and then wouldn’t leave me alone.

Songs Mike used to sing at the top of his lungs randomly appeared in my music library, though I have no recollection of adding them. (Love's Divine by Seal suddenly was on my hiking playlist??) His pet name for me ("Sweet Pea") caught my eye on a shampoo bottle of all places as I was shopping for our first three-person family trip. Cardinals showed up outside my office window on the darkest days, giving me a cocked-head stare-down until I finally met their gaze.

I didn’t have a full-on conversion to woo woo, but in the years since Mike died, I’ve dabbled… heavily. Name a way to connect with the mysterious, and I've probably tried it — reiki, psychics, tarot readings. Usually while trying not to roll my eyes at myself.

Because I never abandoned logic entirely — you still need rational thinking to hold down a corporate job and keep teenagers alive. But I stopped expecting life to make sense all the time. The more I opened to mystery, the more it showed up everywhere.

Which brings me to Sedona.

My friend Nancy has a knack for finding boutique retreats, and I have a knack for saying “yes” to her invites to join. (To be fair, offering me an opportunity to leave Virginia in January is not a hard sell.)

Sedona is like the Las Vegas of spiritual seeking — except what happens in the vortex gets posted about on Instagram. Actually, I guess that’s just like Las Vegas. Anyway, we weren’t going for the woo. We were going to hike through the terracota canyons, swim under the warm sun (bless you, Arizona), and forget it was winter for a minute. But when my spa treatment just happened to include a tarot reading, I wasn’t surprised or mad about it.

In case you haven’t dipped your toe in tarot yet, the general idea is that you ask the cards a question. Then your tarot reader lays out a “spread” of cards that is meant to explain the context of your question and clarify a way forward. So there’s a card that describes the current situation, a card that describes the biggest obstacle, a card that describes how to overcome it, a card that describes the gift in the situation, etc.

But for once in my overthinking life, I arrived without a burning question. I’ll admit I was a little smug watching the cards be laid out — as if they needed me more than I needed them.

At least that's what I thought until Cara, my reader, saw right through me.

"I sense fear in you," she said, laying down another card.

I almost laughed. Fear? I've stood in an emergency room while my world collapsed. I've rebuilt a life from scratch. I've raised teenagers alone. Fear and I are old drinking buddies, but we haven’t been hanging out much recently.

Yet the cards kept coming. Be your big, bold self (peacock!). Speak the dark truths others won't (moon!).

Then it hit me like a spiritual two-by-four — I'm not afraid of the darkness. I'm afraid of bringing too much light.

The truth is I often feel fear tickling the back of my brainstem as I’m tiptapping these posts out to you, dear reader. I’m constantly worried that my message about transformation after loss will feel like mockery or empty promises to someone still trapped in the shadowland of grief. So I hedge, almost without realizing I’m doing it. It doesn’t feel like giving into fear, it feels like making the rational decision given my mission and my audience.

But Cara and the cards were having none of it. “No pulling punches, no watering down the message. Yes, people will throw rocks. Too bad. Do your job."

Literally the weekend I published a post about bold encouragement, I’m getting called out by tarot cards for not taking my own advice.

Then the cards (the guides? the universe?) reached across the divide into my corporate comfort zone: "Your business experience? That's what makes you different. All that practice there will help you amplify your message as a writer and teacher. You got this."

Checkmate.

Woo woo brought me an answer I hadn’t realized I needed.

Maybe that's all spiritual seeking really is — finding new perspectives to reveal hidden truths. Or maybe the universe can read my five-dimensional aura soul frequency. (If so, I hope it's a cool color.)

In other words, for me the mechanism of insight doesn’t really matter. We don't understand how love works, how the placebo effect can change our physiology, or why toddlers have a sixth sense for when you're trying to use the bathroom in peace. Yet we experience these things and trust these experiences anyway.

Even Einstein — the poster genius for rational thinking — said:

”I believe in mystery and, frankly, I sometimes face this mystery with great fear. In other words, I think that there are many things in the universe that we cannot perceive or penetrate, and that also we experience some of the most beautiful things in life only in a very primitive form. Only in relation to these mysteries do I consider myself to be a religious man.”

If the guy who cracked the physics code could embrace mystery, maybe the rest of us can stop demanding explanations for everything that moves us.

You know what else exists thanks to mystery? This newsletter.

The last adventure Nancy proposed was Telluride, where a random hiking trail connected me with an easy-smiling brunette who turned out to be the writing partner I didn't know I needed. Now Leona Waller and I spend our Saturdays challenging the cultural expectations about life after loss, one Substack at a time.

Looking back at these honestly absurd eight years since Mike died, I can’t help but believe that sometimes the most rational choice is letting go of rationality. Sometimes the answer comes not through deductive reasoning, but a tarot reading in Sedona, a cardinal's stare-down, a shampoo bottle.

We don't have to understand the delivery system. We just have to be willing to receive the message.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Antenna up,

Sue

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

"Your uncle is iconic!" I am pressed against the makeshift coat rack in a postage-stamp-sized DC dive bar, watching my brother-in-law Richie work his magic. The Colgate Resolutions (my son's a cappella group) just finished their set, and now parents and alumni are mingling around making small talk, while still humming "Rich Girl" under our collective breath.

I lean in enthusiastically, asking the 18-to-22-year-olds about their lives, their music, their dreams. They're unfailingly polite, in that way that screams, "Please stop talking to me, Random Mom."

Mrs. Deagle isn't the star of this parent show.

That honor belongs to Uncle Richie, who's currently holding court near the bar, turning some story about a parking mishap into comedy gold.

My son Connor gets praise by association — cool by virtue of having the coolest uncle around. I get to be the mom who pretends she doesn’t hear when they're talking about girls or beer.

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

I know second place well.

You could say I'm a connoisseur of silver medals, a sommelier of runner-up trophies.

Growing up, my sister Amy was always our Grandma Tillie's favorite. This wasn't up for debate — it was just one of those immutable facts, like gravity or the impossibility of folding a fitted sheet. My brother Eric and I turned our battle for second place into an Olympic sport. One year he'd surge ahead with a ceramic Christmas tree (complete with Lite-Brite-style glass ornaments), the next I'd counter with a Vatican rosary that had our devout Catholic grandmother swooning. We made it a family joke; even Tillie got in on it. "Well," she'd say, eyes twinkling while examining my latest offering, "this might put you ahead of Eric. For now."

(Looking back, she was clearly the winner of me and Eric’s battle.)

I carried this comfortable relationship with supporting roles into adulthood. In my corporate career, I was often the person making others look good. In my marriage, Mike's light shone so bright that his shadow felt like home. Some people are meant to be spotlights. Some of us are pretty good at being the people who know where to aim them.

But let's be honest — no matter how many self-deprecating jokes we make about it, sometimes second place stings like hell.

When we're passed over, overlooked, relegated to the B-list. When someone else's measuring stick makes us feel about two inches tall. When we strain and strive to be remarkable, only to end up remarkably drained.

School, athletics, work — everything trains us to believe that first place is the only place that matters.

But looking back, I've noticed there's a distinct difference between doing my best, and trying to be The Best.

When I've tried to be The Best, ignoring my natural talents or more importantly, my authentic desires, it's never worked out. Trying to make the other bus-stop moms like me, when I'm just a different sort of breed. Or squashing my whacky sense of humor to impress a potential investor who ended up backing out anyway. Each time, the harder I pushed for perfect, the less like myself I felt.

That's a recipe for not just second place, but for self-judgment and eventual burnout.

Which brings me back to Richie, who is simultaneously photobombing while backslapping a kid laughing so hard that beer is coming out his nose. Here's a guy who's never met a room he couldn't charm, a stranger he couldn't befriend, or a moment he couldn't make lighter. His secret? He's not trying. He's just being Richie. The magic isn't in being iconic — it's in not caring if you are.

Sometimes the harder we chase first place, the further it flees.

We twist ourselves into human pretzels trying to fit someone else's idea of winning, while getting farther from the one thing we can't help but excel at — being ourselves.

I spent years climbing ladders I hadn't even chosen. Measuring my worth against standards I hadn't even set. And for what? So someone else could declare me worthy? So I could finally feel like enough?

It took me decades to realize I was using the wrong measuring stick. Like trying to weigh sunshine or calculate the value of a laugh. Some things can't be ranked. Some things aren't meant to be won.

As the evening wraps, Richie delights his groupies with a final few knee-slapping stories, while I start helping alumni find their coats. He's right where he should be, and so am I.

Turns out there's a difference between being runner-up and being exactly where you belong.

To finding our own place,

Sue

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

It was clutch time and the Commanders were down. Two yards from glory, their rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels was bent double, gasping for air after taking a hit that I can only imagine felt like Thor’s hammer to the ribs. The timeout horn blared, thankfully someone had noticed he needed a minute.

That's when Marcus Mariota, the veteran backup quarterback, jogged onto the field. He didn't bring a complicated play call or tactical wisdom. Instead, he placed a steady hand on Daniels' back. Daniels leaned in, almost resting his head on Mariota's shoulder, so his mic easily caught the veteran’s bold words.

"Stand up. Get your air. Use your god-given ability. Go win us this game."

No fluff, just unwavering belief. Some might say Mariota added undue pressure or was a bit presumptive…

But wouldn't you know it — Daniels straightened up, found his receiver, and made that touchdown pass, threaded between two defenders, look easy.

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

I've spent my life around football.

It runs in our family's DNA like Pennsylvania steel and stubborn determination. My dad Harry (yes, that's him at the center of the pyramid!) rode a partial place-kicking scholarship into being the first college graduate in our family.

Growing up, I lived a low-key, northern version of Friday Night Lights. Football was the reason my small town gathered at our cornfield-flanked stadium to cheer on my high school team (Go Cougars!). It was also the reason my family gathered on Sunday afternoons, cheering the Pittsburgh Steelers on to multiple Super Bowl victories. (The 70s, those were the days.)

Through the years I kept up my football habit. It turned out to be very helpful for finding common ground with my teenage son, defense contractor CEOs, and everyone in between. But these days, I have a next level of investment. Not because I care that much who wins (don’t tell Harry), but because I’m a sucker for interpersonal displays of connection and camaraderie.

Those mic'd up moments and locker room cameras catch the raw humanity that used to be hidden beneath helmets and shoulder pads: Offensive lines practicing their victory dances. Coaches giving post-game atta-boys. And one-on-one player interactions of pure support.

The stakes are high out on that field — loss is an ever present specter, literally waiting for one wrong move. Careers are ended in a blink of an eye. But those men don’t tiptoe around the pressure or risk… or possibility.

Even though nothing is guaranteed and whatever happens next will probably hurt, they encourage the hell out of each other.

Because if they’re not going for greatness, what else are they doing there?

It reminds me of Wayne.

I've written about it before, how Wayne's unexpected words saved my life. Right after my husband died (literally a few days after the funeral), when the future looked about as bright as a black hole, he didn't offer the usual platitudes. No "hang in there" or "it'll get better." Instead, he took a deep breath and said, "Things will be great again."

The reactions I get when I share this story are fascinating. Half the people are in awe of his courage and belief. The other half recoil — "How could he promise that? What if he'd been wrong?"

Between Wayne and Mariota, here's what I've realized: We're so afraid of overpromising that we under-deliver on hope.

We toss out generic ‘it'll be okay’s’ like stale cookies, when what people really need is someone to believe in their ability to achieve the best possible outcome, and name it out loud.

Mariota didn't have control over the defensive line, the receiver’s knees, or the ref's flags. Wayne couldn't guarantee my future would unfold as he hoped. But they both took the leap. Because they knew that sometimes people need someone else to believe in them more boldly than they believe in themselves.

We pull our punches, thinking we're protecting each other. But what if our careful hedging is actually a disservice?

What if, like Daniels gasping for air on that field, we need someone to remind us of the strength we already possess? Or in my case — a new widow, a new single mom — someone to dare to speak about the infinite possibility that the future still holds.

The truth is, we're all quarterbacks in the fourth quarter sometimes.

Bent over. Winded. Pummeled. Wondering if we've got enough left to make it even another inch. In those moments, we don't need careful caveats or vanilla platitudes. We need someone who knows us to stand beside us and remind us of our god-given talents.

And maybe, just maybe, we need to be that someone for others too.

So here's my challenge to you: Next time you see a loved one in need of remembering who the hell they are and what they are capable — don't whisper it. Don't hedge it. Don't water it down with caveats and conditions. Stand up. Take a deep breath. And tell them exactly what you see in them.

This encouragement does not need to negate the hard times this person is going through. Mariota didn’t tell Daniels that that hit wasn’t so hard, he shoulda been there when Mariota got slammed by that 300lb literal gorilla, etc. And Wayne definitely didn’t tell me that my grief would disappear in an instant, as soon as I focused on the future and decided to get over it.

There’s a mile of difference between bypassing vs believing, overpromising vs fortifying, encouraging vs ignoring someone’s pain. Don’t shove “you got this!” down anyone’s throat, but when you see that your friend could really use a hand, could use some hope… lend it.

After all, you never know when your words might be the ones that change everything.

With bold encouragement,

Sue

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

I can’t decide if it feels like yesterday or an eternity since my last day as a corporate American. Maybe because it feels like both. I’ve found that transformation can have that effect on a person, making past versions of yourself feel both achingly familiar and worlds away.

It’s been exactly a year since I left my position as Chief Growth Officer at V2X. This is the biggest transition I’ve ever consciously faced. In previous times — Mike’s death, moving houses, changing jobs — my motto was, “Get on with it, Deagle!” But this past year I’ve had something my corporate salary could never buy — space. So I’ve gotten to pay attention as the layers of this transition unfolded, instead of hurrying to catch up with the future.

A career change isn’t usually what most people think of when they hear the term “loss”, our TL bread and butter. But transition of any kind inherently involves losing things. Which is… a bummer. It would be great if we could ensure that any change we made only added more to our lives, never requiring a single sacrifice.

But it does and so, when in doubt, we don’t risk it. We avoid transition, choosing to remain in jobs, industries, relationships, city limits, routines as default. The devil we know feels safer than the devil we don’t, and all that.

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

So as frankly as I can, I’m going to share what this experience — retirement, reinvention, creative awakening are just a few of the names it could fall under — has been like. Both because I’m intrigued by what I will find in my sifting, and because there may be a nugget of realization somewhere in here for you, too.

Maybe the devil you don’t know will be ever so slightly unmasked — the shroud of unknowing lifted just enough to imagine a life beyond “what I’ve always done”.

What I’ve lost since leaving V2X and my corporate career:

People. Hands down, this is the biggest blank space.

I miss the coworkers I interacted with daily. I miss the teammates in far flung places. I miss meeting warfighters around the globe dedicating their lives to the service of our country. I loved that part of my job, and no matter how many coffee dates and book festivals and group workout classes I go to, I can’t replicate that special coworker/teammate bond.

Speaking of…

Teamwork. Specifically, solving big problems that impact a lot of people together.

As a swimmer growing up, I had no idea how satisfying a team victory could be. I didn’t understand the revelry of having your individual goals fall away to become a spark plug in a mighty machine. But in my corporate career, I had the exhausting pleasure of joining forces, setting our mutual sights, and performing the capitalist equivalent of this rugby scrum holding off a revving F1 race car.

Since leaving V2X, I miss moving mountains as a team.

Purpose. I was lucky. My corporate job had a sense of purpose. Not every aspect of it of course, because what job does? But supporting our nation’s service members — all the young soldiers, sailors, and airmen who joined the military for both patriotic and personal-opportunity reasons — was a true honor.

To be fair, I have been able to replace my old purpose with a new purpose, one that is arguably closer to my heart. But no purpose is quite like the next. So there is still an ache when I remember being able to immediately and concretely improve those service members’ lives.

Income. Ah yes, that pesky detail!

This is not a finance blog, but I’d be lying if I said that 30+ years of a bi-weekly paycheck was not a source of comfort. My finances are fine, but it’s taken me a while to adjust to looking at them in a different way.

PowerPoints, spreadsheets, performance reviews, self-assessments. Hooray!

What I’ve gained since dedicating my time fully to writing about loss and vibrant living:

Freedom. I do what I want, when I want, with whomever I want.

For years I had to stick a smile on my face and deal with difficult people (in all fairness, some might say the same about me!), frustrating tasks (see the last point above), and decisions I didn’t agree with. But I don’t have to play nice anymore. I don’t have to play at all.

I’m able to fine tune my dials — what makes me happy; what makes me crazy. More of this. None of that. I feel in control of not just my day, but my destiny.

I’m able to lean into exactly what matters to me:

* a weekday visit to see Kendall;

* a pilgrimage with spotty wifi;

* a vacation where I only open books, not my laptop;

* literally anything for the end of the month, quarter, fiscal year — those times that used to be off limits and heads down in the corporate calendar.

I’ll stop now, but this list is endless.

Freewheeling. Goodbye plans, hello last-minute, gut-feel, why-the-hell-not decisions.

To be clear, this isn’t because I’ve become a sloth. My days are still full, my nights still find me weary and satisfied. My work is simply no longer guided by shareholder expectations. Instead, I follow feelings — what is engaging, energizing, self-actualizing.

So far it’s going better than expected. I have one book under contract, and two more in my brain (stay tuned for a pilgrim adventure story!). I have one overseas speaking engagement coming in the spring, and hope more will follow. I’m in the flow.

Reverence. Without the corporate workload, I’ve slowed waaaaaay down. And with that change of pace I see far more — not just with my eyes.

Replacing the skin-deep experiences of nature, people, architecture, weather that I used to squeeze in during busy weekends, I can now let the phenomena around me sink in… opening me up to deeper levels of understanding.

It’s always impossible to describe the ineffable because, well, it’s ineffable. But I have a reverence for what’s around me because I’m taking it in for longer, savoring it, seeing the meaning underneath.

Irreverence. Yep, I’ve always had a big, ridiculous laugh. But I’m deploying it so much more these days.

I can laugh in a crowd. I can laugh by myself. I can laugh at my favorite TikTok dad who shares quotes from teenagers including, “what time is noon?” I can laugh at inappropriate moments and not care if anyone cares.

I have the spaciousness, the lightness of an unhurried life, which makes laughing easier than I can ever remember it being.

Which brings me to…

Space. The factor that underpins all the others.

I would need an entire book to report all the benefits of taking your foot off the gas and letting life unravel in it’s own pace. But I’ll summarize with this — I didn’t know I could feel so much gratitude in daily life.

Something about spaciousness makes it bloom like wildflowers.

It’s fair to say that what I’ve gained has made up for what I’ve lost.

However, does that mean I wish I had made the transition sooner? I’m not so sure. I would not be on this “other side” if I had not been a corporate wonk first.

Tactically, I wouldn’t have earned enough to be independent now. But I also wouldn’t have learned the lessons, the skills, the resilience either. Every ounce of that knowledge informs and improves what I’m doing today — how to tell stories; how to make an impact; how to influence; how to share; how to talk 1:1 and 1:1,000.

I believe that none of our life experiences are wasted. Not the good ones: starting a women’s summit, closing a giant deal, growing a public company, turning coworkers into teammates into lifelong friends. And not even the crappy ones: some Wall Street investor calling me a female token or an Arab man comparing widowed women to used cars. Thanks, a******s. You made me tougher. You made me believe in myself even more. You made me a force of nature.

In other words, transitions are more than a matter of “I’m ready to trade up.”

Who we were and what we’ve done informs what we will do and who we will become.

But there’s another factor that I think has helped me make lemonade from this lifequake. When we learn to lean into the opportunity of change, life is much more likely to become what we hope it to be, instead of what we’re used to it being.

Through my widowhood, I’ve become intimately familiar with the revitalizing force of loss.

When much of what you’ve known has been swept away, by choice or by circumstance, you are left with a blank canvas.

The concrete facts and routines of your life aren’t the only things changed beyond recognition. Your beliefs, how you think life “works”, your priorities and values are dust. There is no going back; you have to start again.

This is terrifying… but it’s also a chance to reimagine your life. It’s not a coincidence that in the shadow of volcanos we find the most fertile soil on the earth. Annihilation in its completeness renews and prepares the ground for endless possibility.

So when the smoke of transition clears, you find yourself with more choice than you’ve had in a long time. Not just in what you’re going to eat that day, but in how you’re going to fill your day, where you’re going to focus your energy, how you’re going to meet and make something of your life.

Mike’s death prepared me to meet this annihilation with arms wide open. Because an annihilation it was — I lost my identity, my ride-or-die work family, and 60 hours a week of stimulation and expectation in one fell swoop.

For the first couple of weeks afterwards, I distracted myself, took it easy, and didn’t think too hard, because hey, I’m still human. But when the dust and emotions settled, I knew that I was going to let go of everything I could. Because anything that was true — friendships, habits, priorities — would grow back. And anything that wasn’t would decompose, leaving space for… whatever I could dream of.

And the only limit was how big, how out-of-the-box, how authentic to me I could dream.

Your transition won't mirror mine — nor should it.

When done right, transitions are unique to each of us. Whatever you’ve lost has left space to cultivate new goals, new routines, new ways of being that fit you.

“New… all of those things?? There are too many options, where do I begin?”

Great question. A question many of us don’t get a chance to think about until life is asking us for the answer.

All we can do is give ourselves permission to try things, to experiment and mess up and reroute, to gently add and subtract until things feel… right.

It’s taken me a year.

I slowly shed the layers of Corporate Sue, Go-Getter Sue, Strategizer Sue one by one as I realized those versions of me didn’t fit anymore. I turned off my 6am alarm for a day, then a week, then for good; I outlined a longterm marketing plan for TL, then scrapped it; I returned to hobbies I loved when I was a girl.

We humans are so adaptable, it can take awhile to realize that who we’ve learned to be isn’t who we want to be.

So, I can’t tell you what your transition will be like. I have no clue! But I can promise it will open up options you didn’t know you had… in direct proportion to your acceptance that you might not get it right on the first try.

Just remember: the stakes aren’t that high. If this round of reinvention doesn’t go as planned, the universe has a way of offering us “fresh chances” to grow something new again soon. (That’s code for volcano eruptions.)

To fertile soil,

Sue

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

“You’re still going??” A few brave and caring souls said this to me out loud. Everyone else was surely thinking it.

It was December of 2016. My husband Mike — master logistician and family trip organizer — had planned our upcoming holiday ski vacation as soon as our 2015 trip wrapped. Flights, lodging, lift tickets, even a Leanne Rimes concert at the Vail Valley’s performing arts venue were lined up and locked down.

But six weeks before scheduled departure, he was gone.

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

The holiday Beaver Creek ski trip was a family tradition.

As soon as the kids were big enough to ride the magic carpet up teeny, tiny slopes we embarked on our first snow odyssey. Ski instructors patiently schooled them on ski moves such as the pizza (make a wedge!) and french fries (parallel position to fly down the hill!). Then we’d hit the slopes all together.

(Teeny tiny Connor and Kendall)

It was a family love affair with all things winter, but Mike in particular reveled in the physicality of skiing (that guy was good at everything, I swear!), the beauty of the mountains, and the uninterrupted time with the kids as work laptops and conference calls finally took a backseat. We’d also get a little date time in, sneaking off to a distillery or art gallery while the kids were in ski school. The trips were an essential yearly battery re-charge for the entire family.

So, of course, we’d still go on the trip he’d lovingly and obsessively planned, right??

Looking back on it now, I can’t decide whether to be baffled, appalled, or pat myself on the back that I decided to haul the kids and all our ski stuff to Colorado while we all struggled to hide our constantly watery eyes. How did I process that decision? Why did I choose to proceed? How did I make that call amidst the jagged shards where my heart and brain used to be?

I can’t remember.

I can’t remember a lot of things from those days. This is the healthy and necessary cushioning of a mind in shock… Of a mom using trial and error to find what was right for her babies (which by necessity required doing what was right for her).

What I do know is, I was a master at both going through the motions and staying in motion. I’m sure that somewhere deep down I had a sense that doing something was better than doing nothing.

We could cancel the trip and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the sound of the garage door and Mike’s booming voice as he wrapped up a conference call from the car. We could stare at all the spaces he used to fill — kitchen table, family room sofa, next to the stove making breakfast. We could wake up each morning to face the crack in the universe where he should have been with a grief only seemingly refreshed by the night’s sleep.

Or we could get on a plane and have one week of escape from the daily reminders of how wrong our new reality was.

So, that’s what we did.

We fumbled through that first trip as a family of three. We skied during the day and kept to ourselves in the evening. We spent just the right amount of time with friends who lived up the valley. We snuggled in bed together and watched movies to keep our loneliness at bay. We didn’t tell a soul what we were missing. No one asked.

We started the slow, fitful journey to becoming the next version of our family.

Over the last eight years, we’ve repeated this trip.

Year after year we’ve come back to the snow, the mountains, the views.

At first because it was simple and effective. Get out of dodge without too much trouble and feel like “normal” family for a little while. I could execute the prep and implementation with confidence in my newly solo state. I knew the ins and outs of the Vail Valley. I knew the two hour white-knuckled trip from Denver in the sideways snow. I knew the best Tex Mex, the best grocery store, where to get my newspapers. I looked forward to my yearly visit to favorite indy bookstore The Bookworm.

With time the trip evolved, matching our inner evolutions. We were no longer trying to do an amateur-theater-company reenactment of our family of four. We were adapting to life as it was, not as we wished it to be. Which meant becoming who we were, not who we wished to be.

I stopped skiing. I was a menace on skis, too anxious about hurting myself or someone else. Yes, I lost time with the kids, but I also ceased holding them back. So I set them free on the slopes, and instead focused on what I found fun — swimming pre-sunrise in the outdoor pool as the steam rose and the snowflakes fell. Watching college bowl games with a raucous hotel lobby crowd (Duke’s Mayo Bowl, anyone?). Reading my new books.

And… working. Far, far too much. Me and all the other corporate wonks (mostly dads) in the hotel lobby at the crack of dawn, finding quiet corners to take conference calls, clickety-clacking away on our laptops, nursing our coffee and our slow-burn frustration that work never stops.

Connor, Kendall, and I found a new rhythm too, meeting up for afternoon hot chocolate, grabbing pizza or burgers or whatever enormous carbo load the kids needed during their ski week marathon, and then soaking in the hot tub under the velvet sky. This week, from Christmas through New Year’s, became the time when we broached deeper subjects — the topics that didn’t fit during hectic school days or endless errand weekends.

The mountains provided a time out of time; secrets were safe from the ears of our everyday lives and even heavy topics sparkled under the morning frost.

Change is the nature of things.

When we adjust to our evolving circumstances, we open ourselves to the new. New observations. New emotions. New opportunities. Even when something has been good for us in the past, it may not be good for us in the future. Claiming the capacity to make new choices is the very definition of empowerment. Yes, it requires trial and error; yes, we may not get it right on the first try. But that’s how we eventually end up at something better, by being willing to move forward anyway.

In other words, this year was our last year spending the holidays in Colorado. It’s time to break our streak.

This mountain has served us well. We took our first independent steps (ski turns?) as a family of three here, reconnected here year after year, and had a few spectacular blowout fights here. Deciding to end the tradition does not negate that, but it does open up the possibility for the next version of Vail Valley to emerge. To discover what can meet us now, now that we are different.

Connor will be 23 (!!) next holiday season, living an independent post-college life. Kendall will be studying abroad in the fall, God knows where, and may want to extend her travels. I’m no longer buried under a corporate workload, overwhelmed by the endless to do list of single parenting, and no longer seeking a sure thing. None of us know where we’ll be come December 2025, physically or emotionally.

So I’m putting down the master planner baton Mike passed to me and making no commitments.

Mike would have never put up with this. He liked to plan in advance as far as you could buy flights (on United Airlines, that’s 330 days ahead!). We could honor his memory by living how he liked to live, or we can honor his memory by never letting anything stop us from living our best lives as we define them… which means keeping up with that ever-evolving definition.

Times, they are a-changin, as Nobel poet laureate Bob Dylan sings. But we’re not afraid of change. We’ve learned to move with life’s current. We can’t know what’s around the next bend, but sometimes it’s just time to find out.

To 2025 and the surprises it brings,

Sue

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

“What the hell am I doing here?” It was a frosty day in February 2024 when I posed this question to my editor Leona. By ‘here’ I didn’t mean ‘in the treehouse’ or ‘on planet earth’. I meant with my work. With The Luminist. Where was it going? What was the point?

Just to be clear, I was (and am) in no danger of stopping. Weekly — actually pretty much daily — writing has become a part of me. Because writing has revealed me. Like some archeological dig in a French cave or the Fertile Crescent, writing TL is like wielding a soft-fibered brush to sweep away layers of dust and dim thinking to discover the truth of what’s underneath. The truth of me. What I’ve learned, what my values are, the ever-accumulating wisdom of my transformational experience with loss.

I’d do it even if no one read my words.

But when I asked Leona this question, it had been one month since my ‘real’ job ended. Since 30+ years in corporate America came to a halt.

I’d kicked all my coping mechanisms into high gear. I’d begun meeting new people, building new community, looking forward to my upcoming pilgrimage. I felt exposed without my corporate-job weighted blanket, but I also felt free.

However, here is what I was not free from:

My WHAT’S NEXT mentality.

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

“What’s next” — the when, where, how strategy of a linear life — has been my modus operandi since I became a sentient striver.

I’d pin that time to early high school, when the questions (in retrospect) felt smaller. When am I going to meet a nice guy? How am I going to set the Blackhawk High School record in the 500 freestyle? Where am I going to go to college?

Over the decades, the ‘what’s next’ questions gained size and impact. And the drive to find answers consumed my brain.

Is this the handsome prince that I marry?

Is this when we start a family?

Is this the new job that’s going to make my career?

Asking, then answering, then executing was both exhilarating and satisfying. I became addicted to the forward momentum, that crackling of electrons that comes with progress and clarity.

It also made it easier to ignore questions I wasn’t ready to answer, like what it all meant…

And if my actions were really aligned with who I was.

We are always pondering, asking, fretting about what’s next.

I’m not knocking strategizing or taking action. I’m still deeply wedded to the idea that a body in motion stays in motion. It’s way easier to outrun my scarcity mentality that way.

But after (rhetorically) asking Leona where I was headed, strange things unfolded for me this year. Things that had bupkiss to do with what I would’ve imagined was ‘next’. I didn’t make a single plan, instead I just followed my intuition. An idea would arise in my mind… and I would either do it or not. No calculating, just imagining if doing the thing made me feel alive.

So, when I found myself in March at a workshop with the Do Lectures founder, David Hieatt, I thought, “why the hell not?” and pitched my idea for a talk. And when I was getting off the Do stage in July, I was approached by a publisher. Did I want to write a book? Admittedly this answer was easy. So I signed a book deal in October.

NONE, and I repeat NONE, of those things were on my “2024 Master Plan to Do All The Things” List.

This experience felt like a giant hand yanking me up by my bomber jacket collar — “This way, silly!” And so I came to realize ‘what’s next?’ is not the right question for me anymore.

And ‘what the hell am I doing here?’ isn’t either.

In fact, I don’t think ‘what, where, or how’ are part of my strategic thinking much at all these days.

Instead, my visioning revolves around ‘why’. Because ‘why’ brings us back to what really matters.

I’ve checked off many of the boxes of a “successful” life.

Married the prince, raised the kids, built the career, then the dream house, traveled the world, etc. Sure, there was that hiccup where my husband died way too soon, but me and the kids made it out of that stronger, fiercer, more in love with life.

The point is, I tried the goal way. It got me a posh office, a bajillion frequent flier miles, and a damn nice house… but it didn’t make me feel alive. Like my life was full and electric, bouncing me out of bed in the morning.

No, I only found that when I stopped trying to think my way to what’s next, and started feeling my way instead. When I replaced goals with values, priorities, and purpose. (Sure, it helps that I first did many of the things I set out to do. But I also experienced a grief so world-shattering, I realized most of those goals were societally-conditioned. They worked for a time… ‘til they didn’t.)

I’m no longer living to check the boxes, to get the right answers, or to impress anyone else. I’m living to get the most out of life, to love the people I love well, and to help others’ struggling with loss and transition.

So, why would I arrange my life so I can see my kids in college every month? Why would I walk 500km across Scandinavia? Why would I deny an invitation to a party I don’t actually want to go to, but feel like I should to save face? Why would I pitch myself as a speaker for a boutique idea’s festival in Wales of all places?

Because, damn, that sounds like a rich, memorable, unapologetic life I can be proud of.

Who knows what 2025 will bring. I’m not too worried about it. I’ve got my trusty compass, and am pumped to meet more opportunities with “why the hell not??”

How about you?

Happy New Year!

Sue

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

“Do you still use a paper boarding pass???” I could hear Kendall’s raised eyebrow through the phone.

I was perched at a high table in the back corner of the United lounge at Heathrow, people watching like a zombie. I’d just had a living-my-best-life weekend in London, and was content but completely dazed from the whirlwind. Dinner with the powerhouse ladies from my British publisher. Waiting for Godot. Two museums and hours of conversation with British bestie Paul. Taking an absurd number of photos of Christmas lights.

Looking down, I slid the standard issue rectangular airline ticket underneath my iPad as if she could look over my shoulder and see it.

You know how it is when the alphas in your life come at you. You have to respond with strength. So I decided to lean in. Hard.

“YES I DO. Got something to say about it?”

“You’re a nerd,” she casually replied.

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

She’s right.

But while this is absolutely true, it isn’t the cause of my paper ticket preference.

Fraidy cat would be closer to the pin. Risk manager. Bad luck believer. Karma cop. Catastrophizer.

This paper preference is emblematic of my modus operandi: mitigate every possible cause of danger or bad luck.

A few examples of my wonky thinking:

* If I don’t bring that thing, I’ll need it. Stuff it in!

* If I do something I’m not supposed to, I’ll get caught. No rule breaking!

* If I leave my phone in the car, it will get locked in. Then I’ll need to make an emergency call. Phone in pocket at all times!

* If I talk smack about someone, they’ll find out. Lips zipped!

And if I rely on an electronic boarding pass, my phone battery will die….

But wait.

I never let my iPhone battery get below 57%. (Why 57% you ask? Because anything lower is too close to 50% and 50% is too close to dead!) I’m not like a teenager who tells their mom ‘my phone died’ when they don’t want to be found. I have to be able to be found. AT ALL TIMES. And I have to find the kids at all times, which requires a charged phone. (They are cool with sharing their location rather than me pestering them and asking where they are. I use that function like it’s going out of style.)

So I get a paper boarding pass in case my phone dies, but I never let my phone die… Ok, have I gone too far?

We all have quirks.

Some more damaging, self-sabotaging, and downright bizarre than others. But some are really not that big of a deal.

I come from a “Did I leave the oven on?”/ “Is the tailgate closed?”/ “Did I lock the front door?” -type family.

My beloved Grandma Tillie was famous for going back in the house and checking the hob. Even if she hadn’t been cooking that day. How did this impact her life? Not much really. It got her a few extra steps, and a few chuckles at herself. You could argue that it caused her anxiety, but the truth was, it’s how she managed her anxiety. She could have gone to years of therapy to unknot the superstition that she was going to burn the house down… maybe… if therapy had even been a thing yet. Instead, Tillie simply folded this second-guessing, double-checking proclivity into her daily routine. And then she got on with life.

We are all imperfect, fallible human beings. When we fight rather than accept this fact, our personality quirks turn into Achilles heels. By resisting them, we make them problems — we feel shame about them, then try to hide them, we get weird when others point them out, etc, etc, etc.

On the other end of the spectrum, befriending them has a pleasant, dare I say elegant effect. It defangs our idiosyncrasies, nullifying our desire to pummel ourselves about them.

And it allows us to focus on what’s actually important, while letting go of what really doesn’t matter.

I’m embracing my harmless flaws.

Not every peculiarity merits a manhunt and prison time.

I have bigger fish to fry in the messy human realm... My tendency to get affronted, to do everything as quickly as possible, to eat a whole sleeve of Oreos. Or two. These are quirks with impact, on me and others.

A paper boarding pass doesn’t come close.

So I’ll continue to go all the way up to the check-in desk and talk to a real person to print them (said in my incredulous daughter’s voice). I’ll use them as bookmarks, scratch pads, mementos of trips that leave me exhausted and elated in Heathrow airport.

We don’t know what the future holds, what really lives at the bottom of the ocean, or how planes actually stay in the air. Our quirks, superstitious rituals, nonsensical coping mechanisms help us feel some tiny wisp of control amidst the chaos of life. So what?

Being sane in an insane world sounds like no fun anyway.

Kooky and proud,

Sue

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

“Can you just wait? Wait to break up until I get home?” It was Day 11 on the pilgrim trail. I’d gotten my bearings, my routine, and my cheese sandwich strategy down. But I carried a worry tucked at the back of my brain. My daughter Kendall was having boy issues.

While she was mulling over what to do, I put in that ridiculous request: can you wait?

You know, for TWENTY MORE DAYS?

You know, so I can be there to support and help?

You know, because you are my baby and I don’t want to be so far away when the difficulties of life come raining down?

“Mom! Geez. I can handle this. I’ll do it my way.”

Yes, yes, of course she would. And she did.

A couple days later, her relationship was officially kaput, she was moving on, and I was left wondering if she was too rash or if I was too timid…

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

How much time do we grownups spend waiting?

Waiting for the exact right timing.

Waiting for the right decision to reveal itself.

Waiting for when we’ll know for sure, when all risks are eliminated, when our choice is guaranteed to be smooth sailing.

That increment of time? It’s called FOREVER.

What happens in the meantime? Decisions are made for us. Our relationship disintegrates in a blaze of sparks and fury. Our job gets pulled out from underneath us when we’re least prepared for it. Our wavering friendship implodes.

Essentially, the other shoe drops… but from a hand that isn’t ours, leaving us hurt, frustrated, afraid.

But wait. (Lol.) This doesn’t feel like us, right?

We are thoughtful, insightful, action-oriented people! We get s**t done. Our careers, mortgages, families, friend groups, our 10k races and bowling leagues, our blow-out vacations and surprise parties attest to our do-do-doer-ness.

We are engaged with life and forward motion in so many areas of our lives. But paradoxically, we are avowed ‘waiters’ in the areas that count the most. Where the stakes are highest. Where a wrong move might ruin our day, week, month. Or life.

However, we don’t realize that waiting itself is a decision — we’re putting the choice directly in the universe’s hands, crossing our fingers, and pretending we’re being “responsible”.

I’m furious about this topic right now because of a play I just saw…

Waiting for Godot.

You might have heard of it.

It’s maddening. The premise of the play is two dudes are waiting. You know…for Godot. They don’t really know who he is. What he does. Exactly what will happen when he shows. But they feel confident waiting is the right thing, because Godot will come with answers.

Answers on what to do next.

They share flashes of anger, despair, uncertainty, and boredom (as did I, trying to figure out what this play was about). But in the end they always just come back around to agreeing that waiting is the only way to go. They’ll give Godot one more day to show up with his answers.

Then another.

Then another.

As I sat there checking my watch, it’s like I could feel life slipping away as the two characters decided over and over again that doing nothing was better than doing something.

Because they wanted to be sure they were doing the right something.

And every time I’ve done the same thing, or recommended that my kids, friends, colleagues do the same thing, flashed before my eyes.

At the root of so much indecision is waiting for the knowing to tap us on the shoulder and whisper, “this way!”

But knowing rarely shows up like a giant, flashing LED arrow. So we rest instead on the odd, self-sabotaging comfort of indecision, defaulting to what we know rather than risk possible sacrifice for an uncertain outcome.

But is that really living?

I believe there is more out there in the world for most of us.

Not more things, more life.

A vibrant life that expresses our talents, our hard-earned wisdom, along with our needs and evolving values. But how do we get from here to there, if we don’t know the way? If we don’t have Godot giving us all the answers?

I can’t just say to any of us “stop waiting!” That’s like saying to my grieving self “stop being sad!” Our brains are not short order cooks, taking instructions and churning out eggs over easy with a side of courage and fortitude. Instead of Godot, it turns out that my literary crush, Oliver Burkeman, has some suggestions. (Unsurprisingly.)

In Meditations for Mortals, he suggests that we need to obsesses less over The Right Choice, and focus instead on taking small, imperfect actions. By prioritizing movement, in whatever direction, we reclaim agency in the situation — the ‘situation’ being our own damn life.

“As you withdraw your psychological energies from denial or avoidance and focus them on action, momentum starts to gather, and each decision proves easier to take than the last.”

He’s not telling us to quit tomorrow, break up tonight, resign immediately from our little league coaching gig. It’s not as terrifying as all that. He’s just encouraging us to embrace our agency by taking some, any imperfect action.

Burkeman defines ‘action’ as having two simple characteristics:

1 — It’s tangible.

Open up the word doc and begin revising your resume; call your mom and discuss the pros and cons of breaking up; write down a list of other candidates to take over your coaching gig. Do something on paper, in person, IRL. Not up in your head.

2 — It can be so small.

Here’s a cause for relief: size does not matter. Want to go for something big? Don’t let me stop you. But a series of smaller choices can keep our nervous system from seeing change as a big threat and high-diving into fight/flight/freeze mode. The tangible examples above? None are giant leaps of faith that require a new degree, cross-country move, or shaving your head. Don’t let your brain fear monger you into paralysis.

“To move forward, we have to choose, and keep on choosing,” Burkeman says.

“I’m no longer waiting, wondering, worrying. I can’t be sure I made the ‘right’ choice, but I feel relief anyway.”

That was my editor Leona talking about a big change she just made. Yes, the decision was super hard. Yes, processing it has involved tears and wine. But she’s no longer stuck; life feels like an open road of possibility again. Other choices have started to cascade through her, like puzzle pieces clicking into place.

Knowing, in all its hyped-up glory, is actually not that easy to come by from a cold start. A couple of laps around the track, via small tangible actions, opens up a path to see things more clearly.

Because chances are, Godot is not going to just show up with the answers.

But if one of those dudes had walked even half a mile down the road, he might’ve realized that right around the bend there was a library or a wise monk or traveling circus — anything that could have been more helpful than waiting.

But I digress…

In action,

Sue

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

P.S. I shared last week about my nascent Noticing Odes practice (sounds like an ACTION, right?). As an accountability exercise, I wanted to share that I’m… loving it! My eyes are peeled, my notes app, and index finger is getting a workout, and I’m evoking really heartwarming memories and stories from my life while capturing the ideas. Here’s a peek: