Month: March 2026

You, When You’re 90

I’m writing in the middle of the day which I rarely do. Typically I choose to write, right after my first cup of coffee. I like to do what I like to do best, first thing. Still, I just had to come right away to my Thought Museum a.k.a. Adulting – Second Half, in order to add a link to the best article which I have read in a long, long time. I’ll put the link at the end of this blog post. This article reminded me a little bit of an experience that I had last week, on a four hour plane ride. When I was on the airplane, I sat next to a lovely, elegant, regal woman who turned out be in her late seventies, although you would never have guessed that she was even close to that age. This lady first caught my attention when she and her husband (who so clearly adored her) arrived at my row. Since we were sitting in a roomier exit row, I lazily tried to just swing my legs to the side so that they could get through, and she looked at me and she said, “Aren’t you going to get up?”

Now how this woman said this to me was not said in a bitchy nor angry nor indignant tone at all. It was more a calm, assured statement of her own self-worth and dignity. I felt embarrassed and also impressed at the same time. (This situation put me in mind of a marketing professor whom I had as an instructor in college, who also happened to be one of the first black women to graduate with an MBA from Harvard University. She would peer out over us sloppy, hungover students in out stained sweatshirts with disgust, and then the professor would proclaim that she refused to lecture slouches, so we were to sit up straight and attentive in our chairs before she would begin.) Of course, I got up. The woman was right. Thankfully, my row partner held no ill-will towards me and we soon got into a long conversation. Interestingly, this woman had lived a fascinating life, with homes on both coasts. She showed me pictures of her two children (her son happened to be a basketball coach at a major university) and her two grandchildren whom she adored. This woman talked about her long career in hospital administration and how her friends from work still flew out to visit her, and to enjoy some hijinks at her west coast home in Las Vegas. She repeated many times that all of her many friends tended to be a good deal younger than her, as the younger ones were the only ones who could match her energy. The woman bragged about having eight Christmas trees which she happily decorated every single year. But then, my fascinating travel companion’s face turned dark and ashen, as she turned the conversation to her current crisis. It turns out, this energy-filled dynamo of a woman was terrified to die. Coming from a large family, three of her siblings had recently died in rapid succession (one died in a terrible traffic accident), and it filled her with panic and dread. She told me that she loved living so much, that she couldn’t bear the thought of death. This was starting to cause problems, as she couldn’t sleep for fear of dying in her sleep. She stayed upright on her couch every night versus lying on her bed. She even started attending therapy because she (and her loved ones) realized that she was falling into a pit of anxiety, stress and depression, all for the fear of death. I tried to just listen with empathy but also I assured her that I had probably never met such an alive person in my entire life, and with all of that energy and vitality, I believed that she still had a long life yet to come. I gently reminded her that we were all going to die, but she was one of the smart ones who really put her “all” into living, so perhaps when her time came to pass, she wouldn’t feel many regrets. The lady seemed to consider these thoughts and then we moved on, to looking at pictures of her many casino payouts. She claimed to be a particularly lucky gambler.

This was the long way around to the part where I share the link to the inspiring article I mentioned, by Karen Salmansohn, in which the 65-year-old author has a coffee meeting with her 90-year-old self. (One quote from the article that I wrote in my inspirational notebook: “Inspiration is what you call anger after you’ve made it socially acceptable.”) You can read the article here (even if you don’t choose to read it, the premise of having a conversation with your elderly self is certainly worth some time and consideration, don’t you think?):

https://notsalmon.substack.com/p/my-90-year-old-self-stopped-by-with?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

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This was a big weekend for the world. Disclaimer: I will never turn this into a political blog. If anything, I want this space to be a break from all things turbulent and divisive out in the big, bad world. That being said, just a couple of months in, this year is already proving to be a year full of provocations. In the end, all provocations tend to stoke two big, big fires, sometimes at the same time. These fires are Love and Fear.

I read a really good reminder over the weekend. It said: “Let your emotions inform you, not control you.” When you say, “I am angry”, that is not correct. You are the person feeling the emotion of anger. You are feeling anger. What is that anger telling you? What is that anger informing you of? What direction do you want your anger to take you in? Do not give Anger the reigns. Anger is just a feeling. Do not let Anger or Fear or even positive emotions like Joy and Elation take the lead or stoke them to the point of being overwhelmed or overtaken by them. Use your emotions as informants. Use your emotions as navigation tools. Invite your emotions to the table, along with reason, and reliable factual information and the ability to explore other perspectives. And most importantly, give this meeting of all of your emotions, your reason, the facts, and respected viewpoints, the gift of time in order to process any situation. In short, play the long game.

Last week, I had a conversation with my daughter about something that she was upset about and like so many mothers, I became as upset as she had been, because as mothers, we don’t like to see our babies upset. We tend to swallow up their emotions into the storm of our own emotions and then Heaven help anyone who is in the vicinity of Hurricane Mama Bear. But the truth is, my daughter had already stewed on the situation for a few days, and her emotions were already dissipating. Reason and Perspective had made inroads into the conversation. She was already at Step 5, when she introduced me to her upset. I, just learning about her situation, was immediately blown in the storm of Step 1, where emotion is so turbulent and so overwhelming, that you tend to forget that you aren’t actually the storm, you are just feeling the effects of the storm. Today, after a few days of exploring what my feelings were trying to tell me, I am also at a final stage of processing the situation. I am feeling calm. (Notice that I didn’t write “I am calm.” Calm is a feeling, not an identity.) I understand the nuances and the complexity of the situation. The initial “sting” has worn off and I see a path forward for my daughter and for myself, that includes adjusted expectations, grace, a focus on the long game, and a reminder of the importance of healthy boundaries and direct communication.

“You can’t control the waves, but you can learn to surf.” – Unknown

“When awareness is brought to an emotion, power is brought to your life.” – Tara Meyer Robson

“Don’t make permanent decisions off of temporary emotions.” – Unknown

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.