“Never learning to be alone” is interesting to me. I’ve never really learned to coexist with others. Socialising, sure. But living with others has only ever been under duress. I’ve been with my partner for 30 years, and we live very comfortably apart.
Agree with so many of these. I was listening to a podcast recently on people's greatest regrets and again and again it comes back to the things we didn't do Vs things we did.
#7 hits hard for me. I put off so many things because I was afraid of what my old classmates (from 40 years ago), my kids, my colleagues would think if I posted online. I'm 57, have run out of fucks, and now posting on Substack. It's not too late. Great content Ellen!
This rings so true! Especially #6 (resting w/o guilt) and #8 (not understanding sooner that you were enough). In my 50s, I'm finally getting it!! Thanks, Ellen. xo
Reading this made me think about how much energy people spend trying not to make mistakes. Yet some of the richest parts of life seem to come from decisions that looked unreasonable at the time. A lot of meaningful things begin as risks that make very little sense on paper ❤️
#2 really resonated with me. I think that learning to be on your own is a definite skill, and there is only one way to go about practicing this skill, and that is to be alone (obviously!) but there is absolutely no value given to this at all in the way women are socialized. I left a marriage when I was 30 and one of the things I wanted to do was be alone and enjoy some self-determination. I wound up being alone for nearly 20 years. It was absolutely empowering to do life on my own terms for that long, and I loved having no one to be responsible to or for. But it was so hard at the same time, and loneliness is a powerful motivator for all kinds of crappy behaviours, and I am guilty of making some poor choices along the way just to fend off loneliness. However, at the end of that 20 years, I knew I would be ok alone and I knew how to navigate aloneness to the point where I didn't feel I needed to be partnered to have a great life. I did meet someone at the nearly 20 year mark, and he is definitely my person and the love of my life. But I can say with confidence I'd be just as capable of creating a life for myself if I were alone again.
My regret is not discovering the conversations I needed to have with my parents -- before they died. And not just before they died but *WAY EARLIER* than that. Like me = 40 and them 60's would have been great. Instead of me = 70's and them dead.
Having conversations with ghosts is challenging. Of course, said ghosts were living in my head, so it was indeed possible. Yet still not easy.
My great-grandmother and I were very close. She died a couple of weeks before her 90th birthday in 1990. I was 27.
I spent much of the last two weeks of her life at my parent's house, helping to care for Nana as she'd been living with them and was getting hospice care at the end.
I was sitting beside her, reading to her, when I paused to ask her a question. Her answer changed the course of my life. Pretty much every decision from that point forward resonated with her soft voice saying "I wish..."
Me: "Nana, what do you wish you'd done differently?"
Nana: "I wish I hadn't been so afraid of what people would think. I wish I had done more things - traveled more, taken more chances."
This surprised me as she was a daring woman for her time. Pushed back on a lot of societal expectations, stood up to bullies. To hear her say this, hit the core of my being.
“Never learning to be alone” is interesting to me. I’ve never really learned to coexist with others. Socialising, sure. But living with others has only ever been under duress. I’ve been with my partner for 30 years, and we live very comfortably apart.
Agree with so many of these. I was listening to a podcast recently on people's greatest regrets and again and again it comes back to the things we didn't do Vs things we did.
#7 hits hard for me. I put off so many things because I was afraid of what my old classmates (from 40 years ago), my kids, my colleagues would think if I posted online. I'm 57, have run out of fucks, and now posting on Substack. It's not too late. Great content Ellen!
This rings so true! Especially #6 (resting w/o guilt) and #8 (not understanding sooner that you were enough). In my 50s, I'm finally getting it!! Thanks, Ellen. xo
Reading this made me think about how much energy people spend trying not to make mistakes. Yet some of the richest parts of life seem to come from decisions that looked unreasonable at the time. A lot of meaningful things begin as risks that make very little sense on paper ❤️
#2 really resonated with me. I think that learning to be on your own is a definite skill, and there is only one way to go about practicing this skill, and that is to be alone (obviously!) but there is absolutely no value given to this at all in the way women are socialized. I left a marriage when I was 30 and one of the things I wanted to do was be alone and enjoy some self-determination. I wound up being alone for nearly 20 years. It was absolutely empowering to do life on my own terms for that long, and I loved having no one to be responsible to or for. But it was so hard at the same time, and loneliness is a powerful motivator for all kinds of crappy behaviours, and I am guilty of making some poor choices along the way just to fend off loneliness. However, at the end of that 20 years, I knew I would be ok alone and I knew how to navigate aloneness to the point where I didn't feel I needed to be partnered to have a great life. I did meet someone at the nearly 20 year mark, and he is definitely my person and the love of my life. But I can say with confidence I'd be just as capable of creating a life for myself if I were alone again.
Love this. So beautifully said and so true!!!
My regret is not discovering the conversations I needed to have with my parents -- before they died. And not just before they died but *WAY EARLIER* than that. Like me = 40 and them 60's would have been great. Instead of me = 70's and them dead.
Having conversations with ghosts is challenging. Of course, said ghosts were living in my head, so it was indeed possible. Yet still not easy.
"Guilt is a terrible substitute for a nap"
Awesome -- and so funny!
My great-grandmother and I were very close. She died a couple of weeks before her 90th birthday in 1990. I was 27.
I spent much of the last two weeks of her life at my parent's house, helping to care for Nana as she'd been living with them and was getting hospice care at the end.
I was sitting beside her, reading to her, when I paused to ask her a question. Her answer changed the course of my life. Pretty much every decision from that point forward resonated with her soft voice saying "I wish..."
Me: "Nana, what do you wish you'd done differently?"
Nana: "I wish I hadn't been so afraid of what people would think. I wish I had done more things - traveled more, taken more chances."
This surprised me as she was a daring woman for her time. Pushed back on a lot of societal expectations, stood up to bullies. To hear her say this, hit the core of my being.