With Age Comes... Tangled Tinsel
Avoiding the path to good enough is the key to thriving
My mom kept a nice home. It was somewhat stylish, fairly clean and tidy, and mildly decorated at Christmas. Nothing over-the-top fancy or excessive. And while we didn’t have a great many things by today’s standards, what we had, we handled with care. Maybe that’s why a mental snapshot of a particular Christmas from nearly 40 years ago has stuck with me.
It was the last Christmas I went home as an adult before my mom sold the house that I grew up in. Although my dad was still ambulatory, he was in poor health, so much so that several years prior my mom had closed the beloved small business she had built over 20 years to be home with him. My dad could be difficult in good health, so in failing health, I know she had daily challenges.
The snapshot that is seared in my memory comes from the moment that I first walked into the living room after not being home for several years. I was struck by its overall appearance. The furniture in a room that she once took pride in was no longer nicely arranged; it was pushed up against the walls as if moved to vacuum and never put back. (That very well could have been what happened!)
Then there was the Christmas tree. Growing up, Christmas was the highlight of the year, and decorating the tree was one of my favorite traditions. We each had our own personal ornaments, including several that my dad had from his childhood. And we all loved tinsel—some call them icicles—those whisper-thin strands of metal sheets that we would painstakingly place on each branch, one by one, until the tree was dripping with glistening, metallic threads. This year, the tree still had tinsel, but in haphazard clumps dotted on a few branches. It looked as if my mom threw it at the tree and where it landed, it stayed.
It was a sad sight that I couldn’t let stand. Later that day, my husband Andrea and I rearranged the furniture so it was a living room again, and we turned the tangle of tinsel into the fanciful metallic wisps that they were intended to be. It was simple stuff but it made all the difference in the world. Calm and integrity had been restored… it felt like a cared-for home again.
The slide to barely good enough
I’ve often thought about that Christmas… it was very disheartening and made a real impression on me. The disheveled living room and disorderly Christmas tree were a reflection of my mom’s state of being. It was as if she had given up, and in retrospect, I think she had. Not that it was a conscious decision, but rather a gradual erosion of what once mattered. Little things here and there that piled onto a downhill train, picking up speed until it was unstoppable and overwhelming. I believe that period was a turning point she didn’t fully bounce back from.
I remember thinking at the time that I never wanted to get to a point in life where things that once mattered would be allowed to fall by the wayside. Where we go from striving for greatness to accepting barely good enough. To be indifferent to and dismissive of the importance of doing our best.
As I’ve gotten older, a clearer picture of that particular holiday has come into focus. I understand now how it happens: when burdens become too heavy to carry, all too often habits, principles, and even integrity are cast off to lighten the load. It has left me pondering how to avoid what some may see as the inevitable march of time.
To endeavor is to thrive
As human beings, we flourish when we endeavor and achieve, we wither when we surrender and stagnate. My goal is to thrive, not just survive, so I strive to live life to the very utmost of my ability. This requires constant monitoring to stave off the cycle of accepting less than my best effort. Settling for good enough creates a defeated mindset and sets a downward trend, which is not easy to reverse. When I find myself thinking, “oh, this is good enough” one too many times, it is a wake-up call that I need to examine what’s going on in my life and course correct.
What could be the cause? A whole host of things. Maybe I’ve let things pile up around the house or I’m too disorganized in general, both of which can cause great disharmony. Perhaps I haven’t prioritized events and tasks so they are more easily accomplished. It could be that my health isn’t as dialed in as it could be, contributing to a feeling of being overwhelmed and overburdened. Maybe I’ve let stress overtake my thinking. Or maybe there really is simply too much on my plate and I need to let go or delegate more. Life can become the perfect storm and we’re caught without our life vest.
It’s important to understand—for whatever the reason—sometimes as we get older, the harder it becomes to put in the same effort as we did when we were younger. The key is to be prepared, recognize it and nip it in the bud before it takes root and sets the course for years to come.
With age comes wisdom
I regret not having the perception and generosity of spirit to have helped my mom more at that point in her life. An easy excuse is I was living 500 miles away… but in reality, perhaps I was too focused on my own life to be as caring as I could have been. If I could have tapped into my future, wiser self, I would have helped her: first, to focus on her health and wellbeing so she could be strong physically and mentally to weather the storm coming with my dad; second, to eliminate the extraneous clutter in her home to create a supportive, peaceful environment; and third, to prioritize the essentials and let go of the rest in order to do what she had to do well. All of this could have made a world of difference to her overall wellbeing and life to come.
As for that particularly challenging Christmas… in the end, the tree was up, it was decorated with lights and ornaments, it looked lovely and evoked the magic of the treasured holiday. Mission accomplished. It truly didn’t need the extra mile of laborious tinsel. Those dispiriting clumps were an unnecessary soul sap…but all these years later, they remain a powerful image that motivates me in my journey—and yours—to live well, age great.
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