Once Upon a Timeline

On living our way into the answers.

I have a habit of discarding or otherwise destroying my old notebooks.

This has less to do with decluttering and everything to do with self-protection. I can sense my future self’s mortification almost immediately after the words hit the page and I wish to save her the trouble of ever having to encounter them again. This is not, I’ll admit, the greatest form of preservation. I cannot rediscover ideas, observe my progress, or as Didion wrote, “keep on nodding terms” with the people I used to be. I am fine with this.

And yet, one specimen—a red Moleskine bearing an image of Snoopy looking vaguely dejected—has managed to survive. (I suspect it’s because Snoopy feels too cute to toss.) It trails me from home to home, appearing from the depths of desk drawers and moving boxes to taunt me with its contents. I started this particular notebook at age twenty-three and to my current eyes, it reads like a satire—the anxious to-do lists of a terribly green, Type A lunatic intent on taking over the world.

“Finish novel!!!!” makes multiple appearances, alongside prompts like “Must sell by age 25!!!”

Or what? I wonder. What horror did I imagine would befall me?

At the time, my refrigerator featured a magnet bearing that perennial Rainer Maria Rilke quote from Letters to a Young Poet, printed in ombre lettering:

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

I ignored the crap out of it.

It was tremendously important to Baby Me to do a lot of stuff—get married, own a home, appear on a talk show (I’m as confused as you are)—on a very specific timeline. Her stress is palpable.

I do not recognize this person. Forget nodding terms, I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup.

Despite copious amounts of underlining, none of it happened. I think I turned out okay.

My feelings exactly.

Timelines, as I’ve said before and will surely say again, are bullsh*t. I’m not talking about setting goals and breaking them down with due dates, or planning for the future, or trying to live in the moment, or any other worthy practices that help us maximize and appreciate our lives. I am speaking specifically about prescribed timelines, those that originate outside of us and attempt to undermine our sense of worth. Like when some well-meaning person says you “should” do something—own a home, become a parent, retire—by a certain age.

Again, I ask: Or what?

Such charges often fail to account for luck, privilege, and so many other circumstances beyond our control. They also fail to include the part where things change. Or how even when you arrive at your destination, it doesn’t always look or feel the way you expect.

What I didn’t understand as a younger person is that timelines aren’t a one-way street—they extend in multiple directions. The anxiety of the future is all too quickly joined by nostalgia for the past.

“I miss my old apartment,” a friend sighed, earlier this week. The apartment in question was shared with a roommate she couldn’t stand and countless horrifying bugs who lived there rent-free. We spent many late nights sprawled on her mattress, in a room just large enough to contain it, discussing the future. Where would we wind up? Who would we become? What knowledge would we carry once we got there?

At the time, she couldn’t wait to leave. Now she wants to go back. But I knew exactly what she meant because I’d been feeling it, too. Sometimes, I miss living the questions—even as I fail to appreciate the ones surrounding me today.

I hoped this watch would help discourage procrastination. It did not.

I’ve been sidelined by an injury for the past few weeks. I’m fine, it isn’t serious; but it has meant taking multiple weeks off from marathon training and supplanting it with physical therapy. It means forfeiting some upcoming races and possibly the marathon, too. It also means embracing uncertainty in place of a neat and tidy timeline, which is normally my favorite part of training.

“So… ballpark… when do we think I’ll be back?” I ask, after every PT session, offering my best sheepish grin. I already know the answer.

“That depends!” Delivered with a shrug.

It depends…on multiple complicated factors that cannot be predicted or controlled.

Doesn’t it always.

I remember spending half my time in elementary school staring at the big world map on the classroom wall. My fascination wasn’t about geography, but the questions it inspired. Where would I live someday? Was my future partner somewhere out there? How many of these places might I get to see? One of the many privileges of youth is that such unanswered queries weren’t particularly scary. They meant possibilities. When, I wonder, did that change?

Another touchstone of elementary school was the feeling I got whenever I passed a classroom where older students were learning or discussing subjects I couldn’t yet grasp. An acute anxiety would flood my system, not unlike the feelings contained in the Snoopy notebook.

“I’ll figure it out by the time I get there,” I’d reassure myself, an approach that served me well enough that I continue to practice it today.

The thoughts reveal themselves as I write the essay.
The plot reveals itself as I write the book.
Life reveals itself with every passing day.

In the meantime, I do my best to live the questions, with as much patience as I can muster.

As this less quoted but no less resonant excerpt from Rilke’s letters suggests:

“…not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide.”

We can figure it out when we get there. Perhaps we’ll be surprised to discover how much we already knew.

Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

Featuring La Corte dei Tarocchi by Anna Maria D’Onofrio

One of the loveliest parts about writing this newsletter has been the sense of community.

Writing can be a profoundly lonely endeavor, and it’s been a true joy to hear from you, to connect in the comments, and to get to know so many of you through your emails, newsletters, and the stories you share.

I’ve also loved connecting with other writers here on Substack, meeting up to brainstorm ideas or just commiserating. One thing a bunch of us have talked about—and I imagine many of you can relate, whether you write a newsletter or not—is continuing on when progress feels slow or tricky or nonexistent. How do you keep going when there are no guarantees?

Perhaps it is no surprise that the Queen of Pentacles showed up this week.

The Queen has a message for anyone and everyone who is working to build something, whether it’s tending a garden, writing a novel, raising a child, working toward a degree, or whatever comes to mind for you.

It takes time.

It takes time to build things, whether it’s a business or an audience or a home or a relationship. It also takes no small amount of hope and faith and trust.

The Queen of Pentacles plays the long game. She takes small actions, today and every day, for both her present and future selves. She is dedicated—to the cause, the craft, the outcome. She makes the most of things.

Featuring the iconic Smith-Waite deck, with art by Pamela Colman Smith

The Queen is surrounded by a lush landscape—a world full of beauty she created, over weeks or months or years. She wants this for all of us, and she knows that we have what it takes.

This card reminds us that one of the best things we can do when attempting to build something is to remember why we’re doing it. The Queen isn’t motivated by ambition alone, and she suspects we aren’t, either.

What makes something “worth it?” Is it monetary? Is it about impact? Is it for the experience gained or lesson learned? Is it for connection? Is it knowing you had the courage to venture forth, no matter the outcome?

Despite her commitment to her cause, the Queen is careful to take care of herself, as well. She surrounds herself with reminders of what she loves. She dresses comfortably and does her best to appreciate the view. She nurtures herself along with her passion. Playing the long game means that progress may not be immediate—or even remotely predicable—so she does what she can to enjoy herself in the meantime.

Above all else, the Queen wishes to remind us: magnificent trees spring forth from a single seed. But never overnight.