At a time in our lives when there are BIG questions out there waiting for answers, my throbbing head caused me to think about my small, personal questions and answers.
When I was a young woman, I had so many questions and so few answers. Some, of course, were a bit silly, such as: who will be the first boy I kiss; will I have acne forever and why does my father insist on my wearing the most god-awful shoes. The answers, in case you fear losing more sleep, are: Sammy, no, and he believed in sturdy, good shoes.
Later questions were more suited to my developing, utterly conventional, intellect. Will I get married, will I have children, will Rachel and I always be best friends, what will I do for a living? You get the idea. I’m sure you had your share of desperately important questions and I'll bet many of them were similar to mine.
The answers have turned out to be important to me, but I realize that I could have created different answers and had an equally pleasing (and painful) life - just different. If you do A, you can't simultaneously do B.
One of the strangest aspects of being old is that so many of my questions have been answered. Now, of course, I don’t have a lot of questions left, and when I get the answer to the biggest one, I won’t be able to blog about it.
I promise something lighter on Friday. Don't be afraid to come back……….. and tell your friends about the blog so they can be depressed with you.
Not The Trip We Planned will be published in March, 2025. My friend Maddy and I are featured in it. That's all we know, so there are a bunch of new questions for me.
Curiosity about mortality--as a general topic in a blog--doesn't seem depressing to me. I do agree that reading about a current personal diagnosis on the internet can be depressing if you choose the wrong one to read or believe every word in print. The fact that all of those could soon be written by ChatGP or some other non-mortal or conscious AI; that I do find depressing but have mastered the "Not going to think about that today" avoidant response, which works quite well for me.
Think we could get some readers to post answers to these questions?
What were the Big Questions you had before you were 10? As a teen ager? At 30? or What do you have…