Work in Progress (Ooh La La)
I wish that I knew what I know now
When I was younger
:: listen ::
She tells me she's still learning how to "do" this phase of life. Young adulthood seems to have come on as sudden as puberty a decade ago. So often, I don't know what to say, defaulting to empathetic murmurs. But now, a response comes easily. "I'm still learning, too." I glance at the flower-lined sheet of stationary taped to the window frame above my desk, with its list of "c" and "p" words – calmness, compassion, courage... patience, perseverance, perspective.
It's not so much that none of us knows what the hell we're doing. More like life’s worst kept little secret: we can only know what we know at any given moment. And the only way to know more, to learn "how" to do any given phase of life, is to live within and through it.
I point out that she survived puberty. She laughs half-heartedly. Can't argue with that, any more than I can deny having survived my early 20s despite plenty of feeling lost and unsure of myself. Our conversation turns towards how helpful it can be to remember that we're not alone. No one can go through things on our behalf – but we can turn to friends and peers, teachers and mentors, cousins and colleagues, to hear about their experiences. Support comes from comparing notes and sharing stories. We find comfort in memoirs and novels, inspiration in podcasts and poems.
And when overwhelm appears, with its boring insistence that we figure everything out all at once, we can return to the tried-and-true anchor of the breath. We can stop to feel the sun on our face. We can pause and regroup.
Later, I am sharing some of this with my spouse. I make a ridiculous attempt to recite the lyrics to that "Ooh La La" song about wishing I knew then what I know now. I can't quite get the words right, and by my third try – "I wish..." – he is full-on laughing, and then I’m laughing, too. There we are, standing outside on a bizarrely warm November day, and in this moment, everything is ok.
It's absurd, no doubt, that we had to wait till now to know the things that really, really could've helped us out back then. And it’s also absurd that right about now, we could really use some new knowledge – knowledge we're getting, once again, by living. So maybe the best we can do is find grace – as I always do – in Rilke’s imperative to live the questions.
We only have to keep paying attention, keep taking initiative, keep close to what matters to us, and keep doing the next right thing within our reach. When our footing feels faulty, we can access the tools we’ve collected so far, and sidestep old patterns that don’t serve us. It’s more than sufficient to remember the lessons we’ve learned up until now. Keep moving and take rest. Repeat.
Life is a series of lurches and blunders, aha moments and surprises, ruts and grooves. As soon as we settle into one modus operandi, something shifts in our external circumstances or internal machinations. Just like that, we find ourselves in terra incognita again – land we ourselves have yet to map.
But others have been here before us. Our work is to find which previous maps may help guide us, and where we must simply forge ahead, following some internal compass, trusting that something always leads to something else.
Living in these bodies on this planet at this moment in time is really such a trip, no matter what decade you're in.
To you in your early 20s, I want to say, take heart! You are doing it! On the days when it seems like nothing is happening and you're feeling all existential and wobbly, questioning whether you're doing anything right, believe me when I tell you that your life is unfolding even when you can't quite see how.
And to myself approaching 50, moving ever closer to menopause, recalibrating my own sense of self once again, guess what? The same applies to you, mama.
The bottom line is that we're all learning. Knowledge is cumulative and iterative, not linear or finite. The bad news is, very few things have hard and fast "right” answers. The good news is, very few things have hard and fast "right” answers.
The older I get, the more I'm coming to believe that the unknowns and new stages keep coming (until they don't). What a 20-something can do and what I can do to stay centered are not so different: Commit to cultivating calm and curiosity, patience and presence. That, and never underestimating the power of botched lyrics and a good laugh.