Past Lessons, Future Insights: An Unexpected Ah-Ha Moment

Embracing Evolution and Building a New Future

Photo by Bimo Luki on Unsplash

We are remembering the future into place.

For those new to this newsletter (welcome!) I’ve told the story previously of how a promise I'd made to myself decades ago suddenly came back like a full-force gale to knock me off a 30-year corporate course, and ultimately start an unexpected life chapter to be a writer*.

Because of this, I believe little moments from our past carry propulsion—if we choose to pay attention.

Perhaps you’ve noticed the same thing?

It’s in this light that I’ll share a funny little ah-ha moment from the past that’s been knocking on my thought recently.

Cute College Boys!

When I was a kid I grew up in rural Illinois next to a college campus where my dad taught economics for thirty years.

Perched high above the Mississippi River on limestone bluffs, its familiar labyrinth of roads and buildings is still imprinted in my mind. For not only did my 10-speed careen me down sidewalks and through shrubbery shortcuts with other faculty kids, but when I turned 14-years-old, it carried me onto campus to a job.

Finally.

There’s not much escape when you’re a kid out in the country and your parents (both in education and giddy with summer months out of the classroom) keep assigning you and your sibs sweltering work in the garden or sprucing-up house projects.

My emerging self was straining to outgrow girlhood and that meant avoiding mom and dad’s endless creativity when it came to “helping the family.”

I was desperate for a job’s rite of passage: My own paycheck!

Cute college boys!

So for three summers I flirted via a job in the college’s housekeeping department (one summer my friend Nancy and I admired guys from the stacks as we dusted ALL THE BOOKS in the library) until the year I matured up to become an assistant in the college Admissions Office.

But always—every summer—I applied to work extra hours as a waitress during the two-week “enrichment” adult education Summer Session and the annual Alumni Week. These summer programs used the same dining facilities the college kids had during the academic year. A large serving area with buffet stations with entrées, salads, desserts, etc. Once the guests selected their food items, my waitress job was to carry the trays of food into the dining room for those who wanted the help, refill drinks and clear dishes when they’d finished.

To those chattering diners, I was invisible. Mostly silent. Gliding between the round dining tables to replenish a glass here, fetch an extra dessert there, and always, always listening to and absorbing hundreds of conversations.

That’s where the ah-ha gradually took shape.

A consistent difference between the Summer Session and Alumni Week each year.

Can you guess it?

The Summer Session adults talked animatedly about their classes and each others’ life stories. They delighted in finding common ground with interests and six degrees of separation between each other. Connected, I suppose, by the common intent to spend a few weeks in a beautiful location to appreciate the arts, stretch their intellect, try out a new skill.

By contrast, Alumni Week felt a little— sourpuss. Animated conversation - yes. Discussion about programs - yes. Tons of gossip - of course! But one more thing: Complaints.

In response to a new administrative direction or policy: Resistance. “Remember when we were here. . .” and the past would be paraded out as a better answer in comparison to the latest announcements of change.

Every summer, same distinction between programs.

You know, I was a distracted boy-crazy teen back then. I didn’t know yet how difficult and nuanced change can be in life. I hadn’t lived much yet. But I felt the contrasting vibe between the open, forward-looking enrichment session versus the reunion week’s nostalgic past-gazing.

Today, with more life experience under my belt, I understand and empathize with how change feels hard, especially when there’s loss or a fear of it. And since the future has no guarantees, the stakes always seem high.

Which brings me to today.

Maybe It’s Not about Picking a Side

Loss is in the air. Headlines, conversations, reports, theories, erupting status quo. I’ve been finding myself spinning for a while now. Feels like too much is breaking apart.

I thought picking a side was the answer, but now—nudged by this memory—I don’t think it’s that simple.

Perhaps my choice is not which side I pick, but rather my starting point. Shall I embrace evolution? Or cling to a romanticized past?

You know my answer, and it comes in a framework.

I embrace evolution framed with acceptance, not rejection of others. Forgiveness versus condemnation. Sharing instead of hoarding. And above all, kindness— without exception and practiced without expectation of selfish gain or reward—as a goal for my everyday actions.

By doing so, I hope to do my part to create space for evolution to happen, even though it’s not always easy.

And maybe I won’t agree with all of it.

Together, we are remembering the future into place. All those broken pieces— we can’t go back (and I grieve this) but we can create something new.

For as singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer wrote in her song, “When the Wolf Is at the Door” (2021):

But when the old world ends

A new world starts

What finally comes together

First had to fall apart.

Still a lovesick girl (for one guy) and sucker for rom-com happy endings,