A letter to my (somewhat) younger self

No, you'll probably never have a tidy house, but balance and satisfaction matter more.

I wrote this for my monthly writing group, and it turned out to be a lot of fun to think about what advice 66-year-old me would give to 40-ish me. You should try it!

Dear Somewhat Younger Version of Myself:

You know how you’re always thinking that when you’re older, you’re going to have an orderly life, with a clean house and a streamlined calendar, and without financial stress and physical or mental clutter?

Sorry, but you’re wrong.

I mean, really, how do you expect to go from the disorganized mess you are in middle-age to a level of organization that would be the envy of Marie Kondo? You do realize that Marie Kondo started helping her mother organize their home at the age of five, and launched her own home-organization consulting business at 19, right? You’re already a few decades late in getting started.

I know what you’re thinking: at this point in your life, you still have kids at home and a full-time job. You’re constantly being knocked off course by having something sprung on you. Just this week, one kid’s field hockey game was rescheduled to the afternoon you planned to reorganize the kitchen cupboards, and another kid remembered at bedtime that he needed to bring something to school for a bake sale the next day.

You picture your life in 25 years or so—retired, or maybe working part-time, kids all flown from the nest and thriving on their own—and you think about all the extra hours you’ll have and how you’re going to use them. You imagine well-ordered days, with enough structure for you to be productive, and plenty of time left over to read and knit and walk and rest. Your home will be tidy—right down to an alphabetized spice rack—and your household will run efficiently. Best of all, you’ll finally have all the time you’ve always wanted to write!

I hate to tell you this, but that’s not how it’s going to be. For one thing, you’re going to need to be prepared for a frustrating loss of energy and efficiency over the next couple of decades. You’ve already seen the start of this. Remember how you worked 55 hours a week at two jobs in your twenties, had dinner with friends two or three times a week, and still had time to make your own Christmas cards and tend a garden? Remember how, in your thirties, you got up early, before the kids, and spent a couple of hours stripping wallpaper before making breakfast, packing lunches, throwing in a load of laundry, and going to work?

You’re still pretty efficient now, of course, because you have to be. With a full-time job and a chaotic calendar, if you have a dentist appointment, say, at 2 p.m. on Thursday, you work until you need to leave for the appointment. You might go back to work for a couple of hours afterward, or at least run some errands. The dentist appointment seems like one small thing among many small things that you get done that day.

In this later stage of life, if you have a dentist appointment at 2 p.m. on Thursday, it’s awfully easy for Thursday to become The Day You Go to the Dentist. If there’s something else you need to do on Thursday, even something as small as going to the library, you think all morning about how it will fit around your dentist appointment. Should I go to the library before the dentist, or after? If I go before, do I need to allow an extra ten minutes, or an extra half hour?

Here’s some advice for your future self about time management and living a balanced life: do try to make sensible use of your time, just as you would if you were still working full-time and juggling the demands of a busy household. That will help you avoid thinking back over your day and realizing that the only thing you did was go to a dentist appointment, which, while it gives the day some needed structure, does not provide much satisfaction. Too many days in a row without something satisfying to look back on and say to yourself, “I did something that mattered today,” can lead to bouts of discouragement.

Because we are a family given to bouts of discouragement, they are bound to occur. One way in which you may be able to avoid them is by getting some outdoor exercise every day, unless the weather is really dreadful. (Weather that is only sort of dreadful doesn’t count. That’s why they make boots and parkas and raincoats.) You can use your outdoor time to do yardwork or climb mountains or whatever you want, but try for at least an hour or two of fresh air on almost every single day. It will help you breathe better, sleep better, and feel better. Guaranteed.

Make plans to see other human beings now and then. Become a devotee of the one-hour visit. This is long enough to catch up, but short enough to fit around other things in the day without becoming The Thing You Do That Day. Unfortunately, people talk about seeing friends more than they actually do it. It takes a more definite plan than “Let’s get together for a cup of tea sometime.” It’s better to pin down a day and time and stick to it. If you keep seeing people fairly regularly, you’ll not only preserve your social skills (which, truthfully, were never that great to begin with), but you’ll always have someone you feel comfortable calling if your car breaks down twenty miles from home, or you need a ride to a colonoscopy appointment.

Join some kind of group that meets regularly and has at least one person in it that you like. I know someone who has played ice hockey with the same small group of guys every week for something like 35 years. Even our rural area is home to book clubs, writing groups, knitting circles, hiking clubs, and political organizations. Find your affinity group.

You know how your oldest brother, just like Mom, was always talking about both our duty to volunteer, and the personal satisfaction of being active in local non-profits? It turns out they were both onto something. Somewhere out there, there’s a library or a historical society or a town board that needs exactly what you can offer, and you’ll probably find that when you get involved, you get back as much as you give.

On the other hand, be sure the things you decide to do with your time, and the people you decide to spend it with, are people and things you actually enjoy. The recently retired often become targets for every committee and board that’s out looking for new blood. The whole idea of affinity groups is that you’re supposed to have an actual affinity for the subject, or goal, or activity. And, for heaven’s sake, beware of requests that begin with any variation, even if only implied, of “Now that you’re not working so much” or “Since you have more free time now.” You’ll feel better about the things you spend time on if you choose them on your own terms.

The good news is that keeping up with all of these things—exercise, friendships, volunteer work—is healthy and rewarding and will bring needed balance to your life. The bad news is that your house is probably never going to be spotless and well-organized, and you’re probably always going to struggle to finish projects, pay bills, avoid overscheduling yourself, and prioritize your writing.

Sorry, but that’s all the advice I have for you at this point, but feel free to ask me again in ten years or so. By then I hope to have attained an even higher level of balance and wisdom in my life.

With love,

66-year-old me