Take the Reins

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I’ve been struggling lately.

Yes, you read that correctly. It isn’t exactly one thing, though. It’s a feeling, a whispering, a wondering about a whole bunch of things.

A few weeks ago, my executive coach asked me a question I couldn’t answer. He asked: How do you describe what it is you do? How do you describe your job these days? How do you describe yourself? What fuels you? Who fuels you?

I sat there. Opened my mouth. Closed it. Tried again. Nothing came to me.

Me. A woman who has spent her entire life using words. A journalist. A storyteller. Someone who has interviewed presidents and kings and grieving mothers and Nobel laureates. I couldn’t answer a simple question about myself. I’ve been sitting with the question and those feelings ever since. And then Memorial Day weekend snuck up on me.

This weekend, I am deeply aware that my struggles—as real as they are to me—are not the same struggles as a family who has just lost someone in uniform. They are not the struggles of a mother who gets a knock on the door and has to find a way to keep breathing. They are not the struggles of the men and women who make the choice—the extraordinary, humbling choice—to put their lives between us and harm’s way so that we can sit in our homes on a Sunday morning and read and write columns like this one. So that we can live freely, love freely, worship freely, and yes, struggle freely. I don’t take their sacrifice lightly. Not today. Not ever.

So before I go any further, I want to say thank you to every family who has given someone. To every person who has served. To every mother and father and child and spouse who has carried a loss that most of us will never understand. This weekend is yours, and I honor it with my whole heart and mind.

And it is precisely because of your sacrifice—because of the freedom it purchased—that I feel both the right and the responsibility to use this weekend to look honestly at my own life. To ask myself the hard questions about what it is that I can do and am doing. How am I serving? How am I spending my time? Because I do not want to sleepwalk through the gift I’ve been given by so many brave people. I feel an urgency to make the most out of this precious life of mine.

So back to my coach’s question. How do I describe what I do? Who am I right now?

The truth is that I struggled to answer because no single answer covers everything I am. I am an open-hearted woman. An extrovert and an introvert. A deeply curious journalist, an author, an advocate, and a publisher. I am an entrepreneur and a storyteller at heart. I am a mother, a grandmother, and a daughter who still misses her mother. I am a woman still figuring herself out (I know, lol). I am someone still trying to understand myself after so many years.

Like so many people, I am many things simultaneously. I don’t fit neatly into a box. And when I do try to describe myself in one sentence, my words collapse under their own weight.

But here’s another truth. Underneath my coach’s professional question was a more personal one. He knew that what he was really asking—what I was really struggling to answer—was: who are you right now? At this age, in this moment. Not who were you. Not who do you want to be. Who are you right now, in this chapter, in this house, in this life?

Every day, each of us changes and grows. Many of us explain ourselves with “I used to be.” Many of us stay too long in what used to be because what is isn’t yet clear. It’s not necessarily an age thing, but age does give urgency to time.

In fact, my friend Beth just sent me this amazing piece entitled, “The Wisdom of Age Constitutes the Ability to Accept Reality.” It’s taken from Henry Miller’s book on turning 80. What Miller is writing about, and what I’ve been thinking about, is my present reality. His piece is an invitation to see reality and accept it, as opposed to living in the future or the past.

Here is my reality. I now live alone. My children are grown and gone, as they should be, and none of them (I now realize) are coming back to use their old bedrooms that sit ready and waiting for them. Well, maybe Christopher, who recently moved away to New York City, but if I’m honest… you get it.

My social circle, once wide and vibrant and loud, has quietly contracted without me even fully realizing it. Several really close friends have died, and with their passing goes decades of deep personal connection, loyalty, love, and history that is simply irreplaceable. Others have moved. Some have retreated inward in ways I understand but still grieve. And I have found myself, on certain evenings, in certain quiet moments, feeling, well, lonely. Yes, I have. I’m not ashamed to say that. I think too many of us are. In fact, a recent report found that one in three Americans describe themselves as lonely. That’s people of all ages, from all walks of life. We may have meaningful work and wonderful children and full calendars, and yet we still feel it. It’s that particular quiet that settles in when the day is over and the house is still and there is no one to tell about it. No one to dream with, plan with, laugh with, talk with. I feel it. And I suspect some of you do too.

When I shared this truth with a few close friends this past week, they seemed surprised at first. Then they admitted quietly: I get it. I feel that too. Because everything feels different than it used to. The country. Our communities. Our families. Our friendships. Our workplaces. All of it.

I also know that because I’m single like millions of others, my children worry about me in the way most adult children worry about single parents. Do you have someone to have dinner with? Who’s taking you to the doctor? Who are you traveling with? I don’t want them to worry. I want them to live their lives freely. I want them to come home because it’s joyful to come home, not because they feel obligated or concerned.

This past week, I watched Stephen Colbert sign off from his show. I also watched Anderson Cooper sign off from 60 Minutes. In the interviews that followed, both men talked about endings and new beginnings. About shaking things up. About choosing what comes next rather than simply letting it happen. That resonated with me deeply. Because I realized it doesn’t have to be dramatic. But it does have to be intentional.

I also read a great piece on the need to make new friends as one ages and the value of talking to old ones. Even talking to total strangers has value. Not texting, not emailing, but actually talking—connecting in person or over the phone. It all has a positive effect on your mental health. Talking, unlike texting, allows for your humanity to connect to someone else’s. And in this age of AI, division, and polarization, a thing that increases our humanity is a very good thing.

In any event, it all got me thinking about taking the reins of my “today life” and being more intentional about where it’s going.

So here is what I am committing to this summer. I’m going to get very clear about what I, and only I, can do and try to release the things that don’t truly depend on me. The things that keep me busy without making me feel better, more connected. I want to get rid of those. I also want to simplify. Streamline. I want to create more space for the people and experiences that genuinely fill me up.

And I want to invest deliberately and seriously in adult friendships. Not just maintain the ones I have, but build new ones. I want to show up for friendship the way I show up for my work. Because here is what I know to be true: my work gives me purpose and meaning. It really does. But it is real human people—real, present, laughing, struggling people—who make me feel alive. Those are different things. And I need both.

I want to think about contentment. About peace. About joy and rest—the specific, personal, non-performative kind. What actually brings me those things. What I’ve been putting off. What I’ve been quietly telling myself is too late for me to do, to get, to feel. It isn’t too late. I know that. But I have to keep reminding myself.

There is something else swirling in my head lately, tugging at my heart in a way I can’t quite shake. I’ve always wanted to walk the Camino de Santiago in Europe. Not as a vacation. Not as exercise. But as a pilgrimage. As a deliberate, physical, spiritual act of putting one foot in front of the other and trusting where the road leads.

I don’t know if I’ll do it. But I notice I can’t stop thinking about it. And I’ve learned to pay attention when something won’t leave me alone. Martha Beck—a dear friend and frequent contributor to The Sunday Paper—would call that your compass, and in today's edition she shares her wisdom on exactly how to follow it.

Do you have something like that in your life—an experience, a relationship—that keeps tugging at your heart to pay attention to? You don’t have to do it right now, this very second, but perhaps put it on your intention list.

So on this Memorial Day weekend, a weekend of gratitude and reflection, let me ask you the same questions I’ve been asking myself. Because Memorial Day weekend, with its particular quality of light, reflection, and gratitude, feels like exactly the right moment to dig in.

How do you describe yourself right now? Not your résumé. Not your role. You. Do you feel lonely? Are you comfortable with solitude, or are you ready for more connection? And if so, what is actually stopping you?

If you’re single, have you quietly given up? Have you decided it’s too late, or that there’s no one out there? What would it look like to decide otherwise? What do you want your summer to feel like? Not look like. Feel like.

What are you holding onto that someone else could carry? What are you doing out of habit or obligation that no longer serves the life you actually want to live? Is there a longing tugging at your heart, something you can’t stop thinking about, something you keep telling yourself isn’t practical or possible, that deserves a second look this summer? And underneath all of it, the question my coach asked that I still can’t fully answer: Who are you, right now, in this chapter?

Sit with that this weekend. Let the question breathe. You don’t have to answer it perfectly. I certainly haven’t. But I’ve learned that the questions we can’t answer are almost always the ones most worth asking.

On this Memorial Day, I’m thankful for journalists who devote their careers to asking questions and finding the truth in our world. Like Martha Raddatz who today shares with The Sunday Paper stories from the countless men and women who we honor on this day.

And finally, to the families of those who served and sacrificed, I am thinking of you this weekend with deep gratitude and profound respect. The freedom I have to ask these questions, to live this life, to write these words—that is your gift to me.

Wow. I do not take it for granted. It’s huge, and I’m so thankful.

So this weekend I’m going to rest. Reflect. Recharge. And reconnect. Maybe you will too, with whoever you feel can accompany you into this next season. We all need circles of friendship, circles of trust, circles of love to carry us into the summer and beyond.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone.

P.S. Write down how you would describe yourself right now. Not your job title. You. Then keep it somewhere you can find it in September. I have a feeling it will surprise you.

Also in this week’s issue:

• The Truest Way to Honor Those Who’ve Served

• Your Spirit’s Guiding Compass