I'm going to live to 100.

According to this article, anyway, summarizing new analyses of a 90-year long follow-up study of over 1,500 Americans. (Emphasis below added by me.)

See this:

Reality:  One of the best childhood personality predictors of longevity was conscientiousness — "qualities of a prudent, persistent, well-organized person, like a scientist or professor — somewhat obsessive and not at all carefree," the authors conclude.

And this:

The authors also looked at a study of Medicare patients that found that "neuroticism was health-protective."

I found it comforting :)

The power of forgetting.

I found myself sorting through my "Carrie box" while home over Christmas (my childhood bedroom no longer exists in its previous form, but I do still have a little space in the closet), and smiled a little at some of the things that were saved... certificates and diplomas of course, a few school projects, a throw pillow that I sewed as a youth, a poster of bald eagles (really?).   I felt oddly sentimental about my old orange and white teddy bear. And the old yearbooks and memories of old friends.  Though Suzie from math and youth conference really should have signed her last name, because while she "will never forget the memories", I'm having a hard time remembering.

It made me think of one of the episodes of "This American Life" from a couple years ago, about school picture day in high school:

"What Sydney's picture doesn't show is the decisions that are weighing on her. She's deciding right now if she wants to take the really hard advanced placement classes, or get more involved in sports, or maybe art. She's just old enough to choose who she'll be for the very first time, and feels like there'll be consequences."

I remember that feeling.  I mean, this would be my LIFE.

Ira Glass then asks her, "Someday when you're older, do you think when you look back on your high school years you'll remember these choices that seem so significant now?" Unlike most of the other kids, she says no. She can't remember most of her life up until then, so why would it be different in the future? "Where has time gone?" she asks.

Where indeed, Sydney.  My mom was asking me what some of my old friends were up to, and I'll admit I had to do a little Facebook stalking to come up with some of the answers. We've all grown up, moved on, and outside of a few weddings I haven't seen much of some of them in the last decade.

I had a friend who used to be really opposed to Facebook. "If I lost touch with someone after high school, there was probably a reason," she'd say.  While that may be true, I sent some emails to people I haven't talked to in at least 10 years. High school may not have ended up defining the course of my whole life, and I'm really glad that I've changed a bit since then... but it was a real part of the life that has turned me into the person I am now, and it was nice to refresh some of those memories for a little bit, anyway.

Reading is FUNdamental.

I may never have been much of a speaker (see previous post)... in fact my mom says I started verbalizing later than most small children, but once I did, I started using sentences right away. It was like I waited until I knew I could do it right before I started. For better or worse, that pretty much sounds like me.

Mostly, though, I was a reader. Magazines. Books. Newspapers. Internet. Cereal boxes (if for some reason the newspaper wasn't available yet at breakfast time).

I got my first library card when I was 3 years old. It was my idea (clearly we spent a lot of time at the library)... I wanted to check out my own books. The library didn't have a clear age rule, just that kids had to be old enough to write their own name before getting a library card. The librarian was not pleased, but my mother advocated for me, and since I could write my own name they agreed to let me have a library card. I've had one somewhere ever since. It's one of the first things I do when I move a new place. Settle the utilities, register the car, get a library card. I was also one of the few kids (I'm sure there were at least a few) who looked forward to the library's summer reading program with as much anticipation as anything else during summer vacation.

As you might guess, Reed family Christmases involve a lot of books.

While I'm not generally big on New Year's resolutions, I would like to have a goal for the coming year to get back in the habit of reading books. When I used to take public transportation, I read a ton. Now that I drive everywhere, I could listen to audiobooks more than I do, but I miss reading. Actual books. Curling up in bed or on the couch. Holding them in my hands. Flipping pages. Perhaps this goal will also help me avoid the awkward disappointment when my mom asks me what I'm reading lately, and all I've got is, "oh, nothing much." So please, ask me! Awkwardness is frequently motivating.



P.S. Did you know books have trailers now, too? Here's an appropriate one, courtesy of my mother:

Laryngitis.

I lost my voice last week, on the tail end of a lingering cold. It's only the second time in my life I can remember actually losing my voice. It’s an odd sensation, not having your voice come out the way you are expecting it to. More often, I'm just not entirely comfortable with my own voice. I spent most of my youth trying to avoid public speaking as much as possible. Whenever I would have to speak in front of class, I'd invariably be stopped part way and told to speak up. (Which didn't make it any easier when your goal was to be as inconspicuous as possible.) As an adult, I'm still much better at listening than speaking.

Perhaps as a result, I'm increasingly touched by the example of people who speak up, even when it might be uncomfortable, and grateful to live in a country that was established on the principle of protecting the rights of individuals to participate in public debate. We aren’t always perfect, but our country would be greatly more imperfect if people weren't able to air their differences of opinion.

I was thinking about this on the trip to/from Thanksgiving in Alabama, as we drove along US 80 between Montgomery and Selma. On the way back, we stopped at the base of the Edmund-Pettus Bridge in Selma, where a small monument there recognizes Bloody Sunday and the Selma-Montgomery marches. I was also reminded that it was 55 years ago that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, AL. She was not the first to do so, but her actions sparked the Montgomery bus boycott and became a defining symbol of the Civil Rights movement.

While there were Civil Rights demonstrations in the big population centers like Chicago, Boston, and New York, I'm most struck by the Montgomeries and the Selmas and the schools and the lunch counters... where in the face of direct economic, political, and even physical opposition, people spoke up where they lived and where they worked and said, "This is who I am, and I deserve to be treated with respect."

Because people spoke up, much has changed since 1965. Yet, I found driving through Selma bittersweet. Lining the city center are some beautiful old buildings and historic houses, many of which are now vacant or more often rundown. The city was a reminder to me not only of the historic victories of that time, but sadly of the social and economic segregation that still exist today.

Amid social and economic uncertainty and an increasingly shrill public discourse, I both am grateful to not have to face such direct opposition and wonder if I would have the courage to speak up if I did. Regardless, I am reminded that those of us with relatively more security should be paying attention to how our actions and our voices impact those around us, especially those who, for whatever reason, are unable to speak for themselves.

The Firsts Thanksgiving.

Just back from an enjoyable weekend in Alabama with a friend. Among the highlights:

• First time spending a significant amount of time in the rural South.
  
• First sighting of an armadillo. (While rocking on the front porch at night. Without a jacket. In late November.)
  
• First time going to Mississippi. My 43rd state! (Even if it rained the entire time.)
  
• First time seeing the Gulf of Mexico. (See above.)
  
• First time on a goat farm. (In rubber boots, of course.)
  
• First time sleeping in a house with 25 people. 11 adults, 14 children. (I realize that the 25th doesn't make much of a difference at that point, but I'm grateful the Martins let me crash their party and take up bed space.)
  

Family ties.

I made a quick trip to SLC this past weekend to visit my Grandma. As every time I'm in town, we took a walk down to the city cemetery where we’ve had family buried since the 1840s. This year it was Veterans Day, and we put a flag on Grandpa’s grave. Here is what I was thinking about:

Born in 1920, Grandpa (having always hated his given name) went by Bud to those who knew him. Buddy to family. Drafted in 1941, he served 3.5 years in WWII, from North Africa, up through Italy and into Germany. He also worked over 40 years for the phone company as a lineman and supervisor until retiring to golf, snoozing in the lazy chair, and summer fishing trips to Alaska with his brother.

His five grandkids were his pride and joy, and I was his Peanut. Besides blood, we didn't have much in common. He loved hunting and fishing and sports and beer and company. I was quiet and shy and loved science and books. As for schooling, he finished high school and that was it... but was he ever proud of mine. He didn't live to see me finish my last degree, but his morning coffee buddies knew all about it.

In the last several years of my grandpa's life, he faded into Alzheimer's. I hesitate to use the word faded, because it was anything but passive -- he was angry and combative. He no longer knew my grandma or his kids or grandkids or where he lived, and you felt he knew on some level that he was no longer in control of his mind and body and fought it with everything he had left. (There were some funny moments, too, though. Ask me about the pantyhose.)

Until the very end, he had brief periods of normalcy from time to time where, although a little forgetful, he would still remember names, and places, and his personality. In early 2005, my mom and I had flown to Salt Lake for a long weekend. He was himself the whole time I was there. He couldn't process things as fast as he used to, and he was foggy on some details, but he knew who we were, he joked with us... he was Grandpa. The morning we left, he pulled me aside and slipped me $100. He'd taken to hiding money around the house where he thought my grandma couldn't find it, and he'd been holding that for days waiting for the right time to give it to me. As we were about to walk out the door to leave for the airport, we realized he was no longer there with us. When we found him standing around the corner, he turned to us in tears (the only time I've ever seen my grandpa cry) and said, "I don't know when I'll see you again. You're never here enough." Then I gave him a big hug, and left.

That was the last time I ever saw him. A few months later when I got the message from my mom that he had died, I wasn't surprised, but I cried for a little while. He had fallen and hit his head a few days prior and was in pretty bad shape. He was a strong man -- in his retirement years, he fought off a heart attack, two strokes, and emphysema. And in the end, he hit his head. That was it, and he was gone. The cause of death on his death certificate reads "Alzheimer's". Five years later that still bothers my grandma. "You don't die of Alzheimer's," she says. I was just glad that my last memory of him was of him, and not his illness. Tender mercies.

An island age.

"In my opinion, all men are islands. And what's more, now's the time to be one. This is an island age. A hundred years ago, for example, you had to depend on other people. No one had TV or CDs or DVDs or home espresso makers. As a matter of fact they didn't have anything cool. Whereas now you can make yourself a little island paradise... And I like to think that perhaps I am that kind of island. I like to think I'm pretty cool. I like to think I'm Ibiza."

--Will in "About a Boy"

I am an island. I can do what I want, when I want. Or not, if I don't want. My life, my job, my happiness. Me. Me. Me. I do not have a spouse or significant other. I am not responsible for the livelihood or rearing of any children. I live 1,800 miles away from my family. Consequently, I could live my life with very little but a baseline level of impact on anyone else, and the hard truth is that frequently I do.

Let's be clear. I am an introvert. I like working on my own. I don't like big groups, or lots of external stimulation. I enjoy having time to myself. But, I may play that card a little too often, especially lately. Having a grown-up job and a house takes up time and energy, and I get busy and tired, and it's just easier. Also, it's safe. I can extract myself from the parts of life that are actually a lot messier in reality than in theory, and focus on the part of it I can control. Namely, me.

I read a speech by David Foster Wallace ages ago, where he called that "the freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the center of all creation." I found the speech still online, and he continues: "This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But of course there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day."

A hypothesis: I am not an island. I am a daughter, I am a sister, I am a friend, I am an employee, I am a supervisor, I am a member of my church, I am a resident of my neighborhood, I am a voter, I am a taxpayer, I am a citizen. All of which means that what I do and say -- or more importantly lately, don't do and don't say -- actually does have an impact on the people whose lives intersect with mine.

Among my first goals: I need to spend less time on my own. This may include more time spent building (or rebuilding) quality relationships with family and friends, putting as much energy into my group projects at work as solo projects, more involvement in my community, etc. I also need to work on being more open. Even a little seems to matter. I'm often surprised at how much I think should just be obvious that isn't unless I actually say it.

P.S. These goals violate just about every natural instinct that I have. Which is why I'm saying it publicly. I (thankfully) have people in my life who will never let me forget I just wrote those words.