The Best Years

Midlife nostalgia, playground ghosts, and how writing arrived right on time

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I’m so glad you’re here.

Dream Big is about my writing journey. Approximately every two weeks, I post about: finding writing in my 40s, embracing a creative life, writing my first novel, and the everyday moments that inspire me as I juggle family life and my dreams of becoming a published author.

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On one of my neighborhood jogging routes, I often see a woman walking with a boy who can’t be older than two. By now we recognize each other, acknowledging the other with a smile or nod.

Last week, I finally said hello, slowing my pace to smile at the little boy crouched and pointing at a few pebbles scattered across the path. His posture reminded me so much of my boys at that age, when they stopped to inspect tiny bugs and other treasures. I told the woman as much.

She smiled, understanding, and then said, “It’s different now that I’m a grandparent. I soak up every minute with him. I’m always telling my daughter to write it all down, that these are the best years. It all goes so fast.”

I didn’t say that my mother used to tell me the same thing, because I didn’t write it down, nor did I write much of anything during that time. Those years feel like a lifetime ago; I was sleep-deprived, but also much younger, in body and mind.

Honestly, I’m not sure I would’ve known what to write had I tried.

So why now? Why, in my mid to late forties, out of seemingly nowhere, have I decided to not only write but to pursue the craft as a creative career?

First, I am a staunch believer in new possibilities. We are complicated beings with multitudes of talents, interests, and skills, many of which may surprise us. 

Second, I began to see that the world is rich with stories. Whether it was a character that took shape from a conversation overheard while waiting for a cup of coffee, or a recently resurfaced memory, writing soothed me. Art in its many forms, whether one is creating or consuming it, can dig, reflect, connect, entertain, and, through various genres and personal circumstances, reveal the universal. A song, or a sketch, or a story can heal.

Recently, one of my boys needed photos for a school project. As he scrolled through his digital childhood, I noticed he lingered on certain images, clarifying memories on others. And then he said something that made my breath catch the tiniest bit. “I miss being little. Life was so simple.” I suppose it would have been easy to remind him that he’s still pretty “little” in terms of age, that he has plenty to look forward to. Instead, I nodded, because I understood. 

Midlife, it seems, is awash in nostalgia.

Some days, the force of it catches me off guard: a photo of my three boys peeking over the edge of a moving box, all three of them small enough to fit inside; the sound of my youngest’s three-year-old voice and laugh on an old video; the abundance of gray hairs that have granted me a new look that I don’t recall asking for, even while I’ve made peace with it; people I love, at all stages of life, growing older. And I want to shout to the universe, “Slow down!”  

I have written previously about how I feel I have left versions of myself all over the world, in all the places I’ve lived, time-stamped selves not unlike the memories captured in photos (read more in “Lift”). I think that I’ve always been aware of this trail of selves, perhaps because I knew the likelihood of returning to certain places in my lifetime was low. 

But maybe it doesn’t matter how far one goes or doesn’t, because these middle years are ripe with memories everywhere. Even as these reminders tug on my heartstrings, I reach for them, trying to keep them close, just as I hug each of my boys when they leave the house each morning. I glued my broken Walden Pond mug, a gift from my oldest son after a weekend outing when we lived in Cambridge all those years ago, because I cannot bear to part with it. I line my desk with tiny pots and vessels shaped by the tiny hands and unmarred creativity of my children. I keep a teeny croc that hugged the foot of my youngest the day he kicked off the other, lost forever on a Chicago street, while being pushed home in a stroller from the playground by a college-aged babysitter. Apart from my own babies, it may be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

A few days after I spoke to the woman with her grandson, I jogged the same route. The path led me to the playground where they had been headed, the same one I used to take my boys to years ago. As I rounded the bend towards the park, the world fell eerily silent, all the gleeful shouts I had expected fading. Where were all the toddlers climbing the play structure as their parents spotted them? The preschoolers blocking the slide? And the infants propped up in the baby swings, enjoying a gentle sway in the breeze?

A check of the time told me it was later than I thought, well past midday. It was naptime, a sacred window for anyone who cares for small children. How quickly we forget.

I slowed to a walk, the emptiness of the space squeezing my heart. My boys used to climb those stairs. They used to dash along the squishy play surface and squeeze their pudgy fingers around the monkey bars. How many times had I pushed my youngest in those swings? I sat on a bench, one from which I used to watch them play, and I felt them nearby, those imprints, or versions, of my younger mother self. Not a continent away or decades removed, but perched next to me, watching her children and wondering if she’d sleep tonight. I wanted to tell her to enjoy her little boys, to let them play a few minutes longer, naptime be damned.

I wanted to tell her to write it down. 

Writing does not come easy, but I believe it arrived in my life right on time. It’s helped me bear the weight of nostalgia, a yearning for simpler times, to process life through stories. They may or may not have been the best years, but I also understand that those “best years” are tumbling by right now, with all their highs and lows, and I can only hope more are on the way. 

I may not have known what to write back then, but I think I do now.

Thanks for being here.

Any midlife connections/wisdom you’d like to share?

Comment below or hit reply to this email. I always love hearing from you, and be sure to scroll down for Substack Shoutouts.

Photo by Johnny Cohen on Unsplash

Substack Shoutouts:

Speaking of midlife, here are two of my favorite Substack writers on the topic:

'Midlifing it,' with Anniki Sommerville

and

Annie Scott

. I hope you check them out!