February 20, 2024
That’s little Nance, age 5. She knew
then: I can see it even through the rusty 1970s lens and in spite of that
blasted bowl cut.
She knew who she was.
As happens, I’m not that same little nugget. And yet, I am.
As happens, allegedly big birthdays elicit this kind of self-indulgent reflection. I’ve walked, long-legged with a stride that my Auntie Grace always advised me to “shorten and walk like a lady,” up the alleged hill and on to the promised land of age 50, and I’ve learned some things. I’m putting them in writing in case I forget them again, like how I forget that guy who starred in that movie I saw with what’s her name after we ate at that place in…what year was that?…who was that? Ahhh…fifty.
Let’s not kid ourselves: you all have
been waiting with bated breath for pearls of wisdom to leak from my now
officially middle-aged mind. Here it goes:
1. 1. Grace is everything.
As Anne Lamott writes, “it meets you
where you are and it doesn’t leave you where it found you.” (Praise be!) The
human ability to give grace is superhuman: it is the ultimate evidence of God’s
power in us and through us. It is a gift. God's grace? Well...there are no words.
2.
2. Swinging on a
pendulum is a tricky way to live.
My life has been a search for oxygen.
For balance. We live in a suffocating world filled with expectations of
ourselves and others that can be crippling. I’ve tried everything to breathe:
hard work, success, friends, marriage, divorce, freedom, obligations, passion,
complacency, a clean house, a messy house, drinking what I shouldn’t drink and
too much, eating what I should or shouldn’t or too little or too much, ardent
commitment to my faith, fledgling distance from my faith, selfishness,
selflessness. Do you see a pattern here?
There is peace in the middle—not in
mediocrity, not in passivity--but in solid footing. And there is air there. By
a miracle, I found it. It only took five decades.
3.
3. Lighten up and stay
in your own lane.
I get most of my wisdom from the Good
Book, The Golden Girls, and people I admire. Clairee,
in Steel Magnolias, noted, “I’d rather walk on my lips than criticize.”
Like me, Miss Clairee was lying. I LOOOOVVEEE to criticize. I love to cuss and carry
on. None of these are shining tributes to my character.
What I DON’T do, however, is SHOULD
all over people. What I think you should or shouldn’t do (unless I birthed you
or I’m teaching you how to avoid comma splices or speak in public) is no one’s business.
Negativity, for me, is sport. I’m not proud of it, but I don’t weaponize it. I
used to, but I’m older and wiser now, see (this is a theme), and I’ve found
that the musings I have about all the nutcracker nonsense that goes on in the
world are how I cope. I laugh at most everything and try to share my stilted joy with
those I love (bless them). Even Mr. Rogers knew “If it’s mentionable, it’s
manageable.” He was much nicer, and this isn’t quite what he meant, but it
works. It does! Most of the time, when I see and hear folks telling other folks
what they should or shouldn’t do—when it bears them no harm or foul and they
are shoulding all over each other—I think lighten up. Get back in your lane.
There are a lot of Biblical principles
in there—minus the confessional about what a lousy judgy mcjudgerton I am. Refer
back to #1: Grace is everything.
Finally,
4. "Give what you didn’t get.”
The late comedian, Garry Shandling, wrote this in his journal. Rather than bemoaning the injustices, the pains, the deficits—turn them. DO something about them. And whatever you got/have gotten/are getting that is GOOD: give that…and then some. I think Jesus would be on board with this one.
On behalf of little Nance, 50-year old
Nance, and all the Nances in-between: I thank the ALL of you who have tolerated
me, hated me, judged me, prayed for me, doubted me, admonished me, learned from
me, liked me, laughed with and at me, believed in me, loved me.
It takes an eclectic village, folks.
And from now until my last breath,
some part of me will always be the girl with her hands in the air. I certainly
hope so. She was a tough nut. She knew who she was.
She still does.
