#62: A widow’s take on planning for the future.

My word of the year.

Happy New Year, dear reader! It’s so exciting to have made it around the bend with over 800 of you. If you feel like introducing yourself in a comment below, I’d love to virtually meet you!

Also, my latest podcast interview just dropped! It was a lovely conversation about leadership, resilience, riding the emotional wave, and coping mechanisms with Angela Mezzetti of the Women in Leadership Podcast. (She has a lovely Irish accent, you don’t want to miss it.)

Onto the post…

---

The Luminist is a reader-supported publication that illuminates the pain, the pleasure, and the paradox on the path to technicolor living. If you are enjoying (or at least learning from!) The Luminist and want to help spread our message, tapping the ♥️ and 🔁 button goes a long way.

---

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.

---

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.

Kendall is NOT going for the Jupiter metaphor, and Connor is oblivious…

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. 

Me and mom at her church’s Christmas Contata. (Part of being a good daughter is going to church with your mom when she invites you!)

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’.

This sticky note won the race up my vanity mirror.

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, 

Free & paid subscribers receive the exact same weekly content in their inboxes every Saturday morning. (The newsletter, vulnerable, personal, embarrassing stories, book recommendations, and whatever gifs have made me giggle.)

Considering upgrading to help myself and my editor Leona dedicate more time to The Luminist and support our current non-profit of choice: Experience Camps for grieving kids.