McMusing: To My Future Self
What I learned when the other shoe dropped and flattened me.
Today is day three of the rest of my life. That sounds ridiculous at the age of 72, but it also feels fundamentally true. Finally arriving home after so many months of living a life consumed by my husband’s illness, liver transplant surgery, and recovery, it feels like I am starting life over. I never want to stop being grateful for waking up in my very own bed.
This morning, the Times newsletter included an article about writing a letter to my future self. My Facebook memories were filled with the excitement of moving our daughter to Washington State. While we would not move here for three more years, my heart and much of what we owned arrived here. I wonder what I would have said to my future self on that day?
My favorite memory from that day was this picture of my three grand-dogs all together on our son’s porch for the first time. It may be the only moment our daughter’s Australian Shepherd got along with our son’s two dogs, but it is a fun memory. Ten years later, Duke (bottom right) is no longer with us. Lugnut (in the back) is a huge dog who is totally devoted to our son, and both he and Jarachi are showing signs of aging.
When I reflect back on the long drive from Colorado to Washington and all the work to get our daughter and her children settled, it felt like my personal life was rather chaotic, but the world seemed to be spinning on its axis in appropriate ways. I asked AI to describe the world and political events from that year and recognized glimmers of the beginnings of the political turmoil that would eventually lead to the unimaginable chaos we are currently facing. It was there, but I did not expect the world to shift on its axis any more than I expected that my husband was showing some very early signs of liver failure.
The seeds of future problems are often present long before we are aware of them. As a survivor who lived my life waiting for other shoes to drop—because they did drop—these past few months that turned my world upside down could have easily pushed me down the path of catastrophic thinking. Again and again, I had to differentiate between other-shoe thinking and realistic assessments of the situation.
Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
Meaning: Waiting for something to happen you feel is inevitable
In the tenements of New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century, apartments were built with bedrooms on top of one another. It was common to hear your upstairs neighbor take off a shoe, drop it, and then repeat the action. It became shorthand for waiting for something you knew was coming. (Source)
The thing about other shoes is that the feelings are based on previous experiences, but sometimes we can be so focused on those experiences that we miss the signs that something entirely different—a different style of shoe—is getting ready to drop. When Scott’s liver failure was diagnosed, I began to see that what seemed like a surprising turn of events concerning his illness was evident long before the doctors said his liver was failing. I just didn’t know enough about liver failure to recognize it. Looking back, a bit of knowledge—or curiosity about symptoms—would have helped and possibly prevented the necessity of the transplant (Sadly, the doctors did not recognize it either.)
In the same way, the seeds of the current political chaos were evident ten years ago. Some level of knowledge about the intent of powerful religious and political leaders to manipulate the Christian voting bloc would have made the current situation less surprising. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t visible to those who understood historical trends in politics and religion, especially when the two joined forces. All the signs were there. (Shiny Happy People Part II is a must-watch—it was all there.)
So, in reality, neither the liver failure nor the current political chaos suddenly descended on us in 2025. Both had been brewing for many years. My catastrophic thinking imagined many scenarios that did not come true, but I missed these two shoes completely. Understanding all this, what would I say to my future self?
Maybe what I need to tell my future self is the wisdom that 2025 handed to me. I hope my future self will have gleaned from what I learned to get to where she finds herself in ten years. I hope it helps her.
Time for a bulleted list of what I want to say to my future self: (The first one sounds a bit pessimistic, but hang on.)
Don’t be surprised by anything. Not only will the unthinkable happen, but it usually comes with some gut feelings/premonitions if you are listening and watching.
Keep focusing on the good that arrives in unexpected ways—these events are far less likely to arrive with premonitions and can easily be missed.
Seek out good things by finding and nurturing relationships with those who bring goodness to others and have no desire to control anyone else’s choices or behaviors. There is safety in their presence.
Trust your gut. If the milk in the carton smells rancid, you don’t need to take a sip to find out if you are right.
Understand that applying discernment is not the same as judging. Know that leaders who demand compliance, silence, forgiveness, or allegiance only do so to avoid accountability.
While there is much folly in the world, the time to speak up is when religion or politics is used to promote evil (harm the powerless).
Trust the expertise of those whose vast knowledge doesn’t fit well in a meme. Fact-check everything and do not fall prey to those who do not (like Fox News).
Listen to both sides, but never agree with the side that does not demonstrate unconditional, compassionate care for their neighbor.
Recognize any bias or privilege that enables you to live comfortably and peacefully in a world where others cannot. Always run reactions through a lens that addresses trauma-based emotions and faulty beliefs.
Finally, be grateful for every day that you can wake up in your own bed.
I wonder how that list will feel to me in ten years, should I remain in the world that long. It is a list I could not and would not have written ten years ago (certainly not that last one). I thought I knew what I believed and why I believed it; why I made the choices that I made; and who could be trusted and who could not. I was certain about most everything, blessed in so many ways, devoted to the church and the Christian life, and depressed.
I woke up every morning waiting for the other shoe to drop.
So, to my future self who will likely remember 2025 as the year when the other shoe dropped, I say, "Yes, other shoes will drop, but remaining true to oneself when it happens is far more important than the event." I hope she can look back and realize that 2025 was the year that a shoe dropped and flattened her, but also enabled her to face an uncertain future with greater, hard-earned resilience and wisdom than she could have imagined in 2015.