#137: How to love a life you didn't order.
Making the most of what you never chose.
The Luminist is a reader-supported publication that illuminates the pain, the pleasure, and the paradox on the path to technicolor living. Subscribe below to receive posts about how loss teaches us to get the most out of life (along with silly gifs) in your inbox every Saturday.
"Guess where I am!"
I texted my son Connor the picture of myself with a heart emoji. He was headed to bed halfway around the world, exhausted after fourteen hours in seat 46L before finally landing in Tokyo.
"FRANK!" He shot back, complete with crying-laughing emoji.
Frank Dining Hall. Colgate University's version of the college cafeteria that makes you question how they're charging highway robbery tuition for penal institution level food. I stared down at my tater tots. They looked back at me with equal disappointment.
"The food IS absolutely terrible here!" I replied.
"It always is! But I'm eating good out here in Tokyo! Enjoy Colgate, mom!"
Three weeks after Connor's rain-soaked graduation, here I am again. Tater tots abandoned, I drive back to the cute-as-a button cottage I've rented ten times over the last four years. The rough hewn work table is strewn with workshop pdfs, craft talk notes, and classmate manuscripts from the Colgate Writers Conference I’m currently attending. But I ignore the piles, drop my tote bag on the floor, and return to the rocking chair on the porch to watch the twilight fade. The trees are thick and green, cicadas are humming their summer symphony, and I'm wondering how a place I never chose became so perfectly mine.
Hitchhiking on Someone Else's Dream
Back in 2020, a college counselor put Colgate on Connor’s “to explore” list. Neither of us had ever heard of it. We visited on a February day so cold even this Pennsylvania girl questioned whether humans were meant to live this far north. He liked what he saw and he applied. He got in. But he’d also gotten into William & Mary, his dad’s alma mater… And yet, after one more visit, Connor said Colgate felt like “his place”. So I said, “whatever you want, honey” and sent in the tuition.
My first impression of Colgate? It was fine. I was happy Connor liked it. I was doubly happy I could drive up from Virginia in an afternoon. But Colgate didn’t make me swoon. It mostly made me grateful I lived farther south.
But here's the thing about places you don't choose: if you lean in, they can surprise you.
First, I found the postage-stamp sized bar with the decent wine and comfy vibe. Then I found a walking route through neighborhoods with front porches that belong on postcards. Next, the startlingly named Price Chopper grocery store that somehow carried everything I needed. Finally, the cross-country trail through the woods where I could think without interruption.
Trip after trip, year after year, I built my own relationship with Colgate and the surrounding town of Hamilton. So when an email about a writers conference on campus landed in my inbox, I didn't hesitate. Not because I'd fallen in love with Connor's school, but because I'd fallen in love with what I'd carved out there.
That's the secret about unchosen circumstances. You can't control what lands in your lap, but you can absolutely control what you do with it.
Unfortunately, I’ve become an expert at this.
What I’m Not Supposed to Say
Eight and a half years ago, I got handed a life I never would have ordered. Single parenthood. Solo decision-making. Holidays that felt slightly lopsided no matter how hard I tried. If someone had told me in 2016 that I'd not only survive Mike's death but actually cherish parts of the life that came after, I'd have suggested they check themselves into the funny farm.
Yet here we are.
I've discovered things I love about my widowed life that feel taboo to admit.
Like how I can decide last-minute to go on a trip, no negotiating the dates, the activities, whether we get burgers or sushi. How Connor and I developed this shorthand that comes from being a two-person team. How I get to be entirely myself in my house — no compromising on the thermostat or the volume of my music or whether we watch another episode.
I remember maybe two years after Mike died, I caught myself humming while organizing a closet. Just, you know… happy. Happy in the life I had come to have.
The guilt hit like a brick wall. Should I be this content? This... unbroken?
I’ve struggled with that worry on and off since. It comes up many times when I write a post for you, dear reader. “Will they think I’m a monster for admitting I love this life? Should I show more grief, more regret?”
But Colgate is showing me how ridiculous that guilt is. I can love this upstate campus without diminishing any other place I've been happy. I can appreciate my favorite trail here while still missing other paths I've taken.
Loving different versions of your life works the same way.
I never chose to support Connor through college applications alone. But I discovered I'm pretty good at it. No committee meetings in my kitchen. No lengthy discussions about pros and cons. Just my gut, Connor's instincts, and a willingness to trust both.
I never chose to travel by myself. But now I get to visit museums for exactly as long — or as short — as I want. I get to pick whatever play tickles my fancy, and leave halfway through when it’s a dud. I get to spend time deep in dedicated conversation with my far off friends in their towns.
I never chose to become Connor’s only parent. But wow, texting each other inside jokes as he travels through Japan is priceless; I love the bond that we have now.
And I can love this life, and still love Mike.
What We Do With What We Get
The truth is, most of our lives are built on circumstances we didn't choose. The family we're born into. The economy we graduate into. The health we inherit. The losses that reshape everything.
We spend so much energy wishing things were different instead of discovering what's possible within what is.
I'm still learning this. Still sometimes catching myself humming in closets and wondering if I should feel guilty. Still amazed that a campus in the middle of nowhere New York became one of my favorite places on earth.
But I'm getting better at trusting the process. At finding my walking trail, my dive bar, my cottage with a view of the forest. At building something beautiful out of whatever each day hands me.
The tater tots are still terrible. But the view from this porch?
Perfect.
Making the most of it,
Thank you for this, Sue. I'm just beginning to learn how to love the life I'm living with a husband who has early-onset dementia. For instance: since I'm the only person who CAN make decisions in our household, I get to make any decision I want--without the need for negotiating or justifying it. I haven't been able to do that for 36 years! I would never have chosen this life, but I'm finding things to love about it nevertheless.
I can't tell you what this meant to me Sue, to read this this morning. In fact, I’m going to print it off and tuck it somewhere so that I discover it again and again and again. (I am caring for my husband of 40-years who lives with a rare and aggressive form of dementia, and while I wouldn't choose to be anywhere but at his side, I never would have chosen this.) Thank you for sharing this wisdom!