I wrote a much briefer version of this over on Instagram last week, and afterwards decided I wanted to expand on this topic. I also don’t usually send an email on holiday weekends, but I wanted to share this with you. Thank you as always for reading these reflections. It means more than you know. – AS
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As my grandmother was dying earlier this year, I noticed something. As she appeared to become aware that her time in her body was nearing its end, something seemed to lighten in her.
Her health had been waning for a while, with an accelerated decline in her final months. She didn’t concretely know that her death was near, but of course she could sense her time horizon shortening. Through that time, and then In the days, hours, and minutes before her final breath, I noticed that the things that she had fretted over, worried herself with – they all started to melt away.
This wasn’t a conscious process on her part, to my knowledge, but it was a clear one. The vast woes of the world, the family events she ached to see, the piles of junk still stacked in her garage… as she realized that there was little she could do, that her time left was so brief, her face showed a greater ease.
This felt somehow in contrast to how I’d always operated. When time felt like it was closing in, I seemed to contract. Once, one of my kids filled out one of those Mother’s Day “All About My Mom” worksheets and answered the question of “Something my mom always says is…” with: “There’s not enough time!” (Yes, with the exclamation point.) I had always felt like I was railing against its limits.
“Let it go,” my grandma would often tell me, an urging I could accept only from a woman who had seen so many more decades than me. But it wasn’t actually until she faced her own foreshortened future that I really witnessed her doing this herself. Time slipping away could have amplified anxiety, but instead it seemed to give also her clarity – and even peace.
She recognized that a battle against time was a losing was, and so she had to reshape her relationship to it. She had to give up so that in that she could find something new.
I had a birthday this week, and so I spent some time thinking again about what happens when our time horizons shorten. If that sounds morose, it’s indeed been the opposite. It’s been a chance to consider what’s been clarified.
In honor of my trip around the sun and in honor of my grandmother, I wanted to share with you a few of those things – the gifts of shorter horizons. It feels important to see that these are all aspirational. If I write them as though I have “achieved” something – some kind enlightment – I haven’t, to be clear. They are daily practices, works in progress.
- I don’t want to be in any space that doesn’t feel welcoming, nourishing, and true. I think we know these spaces as soon as we are in them – or at least once we have the capacity to notice our own nervous system responses. I’ve been learning to make conscious choices to spend as little time as possible there, even if that might be misunderstood.
- Speaking of being misunderstood, I’ve come to believe the single biggest key to our own peace and liberation is the willingness to be misunderstood. It’s a challenge for those who grew up longing to be read perfectly – and devoting themselves to ensuring no one could ever misinterpret. But it’s exhausting and depleting and confining.
- I’ve realized that adrenaline is overrated and I don’t want to choose to do things that are going to drive mine up. A regulated nervous system is a precious gift, and so I have to be on the lookout for people, activities, and situations that will pull me out of it.
- I no longer have the desire to compete with anyone. Maybe it’s aversion to accelerating my adrenaline, but competitive energy is not an energy that supports me. This can come on sneakily, though, so I have stay attuned to when it takes hold.
- I’ve realized that our perception of anything is shaped by our mindset – and that our mindset is often shaped by our body’s responses. If my body is wired, I’ll be anxious and perceive danger in whatever I’m doing. I’ve learned to stop trusting my first perception of a situation without ensuring that I’m in a regulated state.
- I don’t want to make some big mark anymore. I hope I can make tiny marks that matter. I hope I can imprint on people I care about.
- As I get older, I’ve collected enough experiences to know that if you wait long enough, things will change. Sometimes the best thing to do is to do nothing at all. It’s not an easy stance for someone who has a bias toward action, but it’s powerful and more peaceful.
- I won’t say I don’t sweat the small stuff anymore, but I like to think I have a much better gauge and shorten the spiral when I start to. I have a more developed observing self that can gently pull me back when soccer schedules seem like five-alarm fire.
- I’ve learned that the mind is not the master, despite growing up thinking that it was. I’d always priveleged the mind – and tried to live there, but I’ve become so much more aware of the wisdom of the body and the importance of tending to it.
- I’ve stopped worrying about giving my kids the right stuff – whether that’s experiences, activities, or physical resources. I enjoy providing things, but the real ‘wealth’ I can give them is the skill set to find safety and peace in their own bodies. I don’t want them to live in hypervigilance or dissocation, which means I have to slow down.
- I’ve loosened my grip on the notion of what’s ‘right’ and I’ve recognized how much my worldview is constructed, rather than fact. Living longer means I’ve seen just how many times I’ve been wrong or that another way of looking at something exists, and it’s a lot of times. I’m working harder to stay humble and in uncertainty.
- Projection is powerful, and it can distort the truth of who we are if we’re not careful. Very often how others respond to us has much to do with their own state of mind, their history, their experiences, their mood. It’s important to hold lightly the feedback from others and to be able to assess it from a grounded sense of our identities.
- I’ve learned that just because I ‘can’ doesn’t mean I ‘should.” I’m a fairly capable person with intense curiosity, which means that there are lots of things that could occupy me. But I’m getting better at discerning what actually feels meaningful and where I can uniquely contribute. (If this resonates, you might want to read hidden realities of life with ADHD.)
- I’m still working on this one, but I’m integrating the truth that there is actually always enough time. It may seem too little, too pressuring, or even unfair, it’s enough because it’s exactly what we have. It has to be.
I often want more time – for my morning coffee, for my kids’ childhoods, for my life on this beautiful earth – but I’m also so grateful for the way that a shortened horizon makes manifest what feels more true, more worthy of us.
