Every Wednesday night after graduating from college, I sat in my grandma’s living room and spiraled about my future.
How could I decide on the one thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life? One city to live in? One partner to marry?
She nodded and listened while filling our plates with kugel and mandel bread. “Emma,” she’d say after my lament. “I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.”
My 88-year-old grandma has always lived in the present
My grandma Reva leads the most fulfilled life of anyone I know — not just the 80-plus-year-olds.
Now 88, she told me her secret is to “just live in the moment.” And, throughout her life, she’s stayed open to giving things a try if they sound interesting.
At 18, she took a leap of faith by marrying an Army man she met through a letter because, she said, she had “nothing to lose.” That leap led to a 65-year marriage. The two kissed goodnight, held hands, and slow danced until the very end.
With her “I’ll try it out” mindset, she bounced around jobs, only staying where she could find the fun.
As a retail employee, she quit on day one after meeting a rude coworker. As a legal secretary, her “boss was a putz,” so she moved on to work for my grandpa’s accounting firm. That job was hard work, but she loved the vacations after every tax season.
When that closed, she went to work for my dad. There, she made a best friend and stayed a while. “We used to laugh at all the clients, but I whipped that place into shape,” she told me.
When my grandpa passed five years ago, she moved out of their family home and into a one-bedroom apartment. For the first time in her life, in her 70s, she was living alone.
Aside from the new digs, we figured her life would remain relatively unchanged. With her weekly mahjong and canasta games with friends, Friday night family dinners, and frequent calls with her 13 grandchildren, Grandma’s life seemed content as is.
Instead, she chose to lean into this new chapter in her 80s and fill her life with even more joy and community. She and her apartment neighbors (turned friends) now spend their winters gossiping in the party room and summers book-clubbing at the pool.
Last week, she was too busy tasting each of her neighbor’s “signature drinks” to take my call. “I never went to college, now I get the sorority-house experience,” she told me. “It’s made my life more beautiful.”
Once again, my grandmother’s life led me to reflect on my own. My grandma lives such a rich, social life — people even recognize her by just her laugh. If someone so happy has spent her life finding joy in the present, why was I so worried about the future?
She’s inspired me to lean into present feelings while making peace with future uncertainties
So, I took her advice. I decided I no longer needed to know what I wanted to do when I grew up — just what I wanted to do tomorrow.
Swallowing my fears, I quit my job in Chicago and moved to New York City. Living in Manhattan, my decision paralysis dissipated.
I made new friends and kept the old. I signed up for the intimidating extracurriculars, and my comedy classes quickly became the highlight of my week. I dated without the pressure of finding one “forever person,” and forged connections I’d otherwise convince myself out of.
By this playbook, I realized that tomorrow, I wanted to be a writer. So, I gave up my spot in my graduate program and applied for journalism school instead.
Just a few weeks ago, my grandma was “too busy clapping to take photos,” as I walked across the graduation stage to collect my degree.
These days, neither one of us knows what we want to be when we grow up — but I’m no longer worried about it. All I know is we’re happy today, and I’m excited to figure out what I’d like to do tomorrow.
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