I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet: Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working

by Shauna Niequist

I open the window and let in the noise—the garbage trucks and honking taxis and yelling children. And I breathe deeply, in and out, and I say thank you.

I’m starting to understand what it means to belong to myself, to recover my own heart, to reassemble all the pieces that have been broken along the way.

There are new babies, new families, new adventures. There are songs to write, recipes to try, meals to share, so much to discover and learn and soak up, so much to see and hear and taste, so much to experience on this beautiful planet.

Almost daily, I walk through the practices I’ve learned along the way—walk, pour it all out, look under the anger, sit with sadness, let go or be dra...

And then I push back from my ...

window. I stretch or write. I do dishes and reach out to friends. I practice forgiv...

For whatever reason, it’s in the morning when I push myself to face reality. The daytime is when I can wrestle and fight against something, pour out the complicated feelings. Daytime is the space to fight with myself, my dreams, my grief. And it’s in the evenings when I need to see

what’s good, find reasons to express gratitude—I want to close down the day gently, all the raging and wrestling paused until the next day, because nighttime is for rest, for gratitude, for exhaling.

Because I still haven’t learned—not after all this pain, not after all this chaos, not after all this loss and heartache and confusion—that we don’t control the story as it unfolds. If you want to be in control of a life story, write

fiction. Get a dollhouse. Puppets maybe.

But our stories, our living-and-breathing, flesh-and-blood, toss-and-turn-all-night, hit-the-snooze-seven-times lives don’t ever fit into the formats we’ve chosen, and I guess I haven’t learned that yet—and not for lack of opportunities. This is a stubborn one for me: Life doesn’t follow us. We follow it. We run after it, fight against it, catch...

While we all love a before and after, that’s not how life is. Most of life is before and after and ...

than before and tiptoe to middle and then amazing is-this-the-after? We think, I’m doing it! I’m a star! And then—another crash. We struggle and learn and forget...

We learn to grab joy and delight when we can. We learn that we don’t control plotlines, even though we forget sometimes. We learn that every good thing takes time and work and patience. We learn to be suspicious of overnight success or magic solutions. We learn to ask for help, to ask for ...

We learn to keep going, because all the times we thought we couldn’t take one more step, we did. What’s the option? We kept going then, and we can keep going now. It isn’t pretty, but if I’ve learned anyt...

We’re strong and we’re not. We make progress and then we falter and we show up anyway. We show up anyway, again and again and again, and when we tell the truth about what we’re carrying, it makes us feel less alone and less stuck, and when we show up anyway and tell others about what we’re carrying, it makes everyone feel less alone and less stuck. You just do all of it right in the middle of your normal, messy life. The greatest moments of your professional life unfold right while you’re having a hard time sleeping or you go back to therapy

or you think you might be in early menopause. All we have is right here, right now. Our bodies, our spirits, our fears, the people we love, the people we’ve failed. There’s no quick fix. There’s no overnight success. There’s no silver bullet. There’s just starting where your feet are, letting yourself be a beginner, showing up anyway, over and over and over. And if that’s not as triumphant and motivational as you want it to be, well, okay.

“Keep Going.” That’s all. Not “Be a Star.” Or “Slay All Day.” Just keep going. A little every day. A little honesty, a little bravery, a little compassion—for

yourself, for everyone else. Keep going, keep going, keep going.

Life will break your heart in a thousand ways, but there’s still music and there’s still dancing. There’s still coffee and toast. There’s still kissing and there are still late dinners on busy sidewalks. Twinkly lights, novels, old movies, soft blankets, black-and-white photos, French braids, salty hot french fries dipped in mayo and ketchup.

We’re still falling in love. We’re still learning to forgive. We’re still watching our kids learn and grow and stretch into their next selves. We’re still watching the sun as it

rises and as it sets, still watching the moon wax and wane. We’re still trying, still hoping, still getting it wrong and getting it right. We’re walking together, fighting on sidewalks, making wishes on coins in fountains, praying on our knees. Every generation believes that theirs is special, balancing on an edge, a razor’s-edge precipice—now, now, now, all the urgency. But they’re gone now, and we will be too, swept up into the past, another special generation on the stage while we watch from the wings. An...

and how many things they’re in danger of missing just the same as we missed them—how often we bickered when we could have been dancing, how many miles we carried our...

When you’re old, you realize that most of the things you’re worried about are actually going to happen, whether you worry about them or not. Hearts will break and bodies too. People will betray you. Systems will fail. Things you believed were impenetrable will crumble, and looking back all the signs were there, but there’s something about us that prefers blindness, especially where love is involved.

Terrible things happen. Treasured things break. If you’re like me, you get tumbled, and the worst of you is on full display. And then you turn back to yourself. You ask for help. You ask for forgiveness. You ask for a second chance. You get up and keep living. More than anything, you forgive yourself.

I hope that the losses of the last several years have made me less blind, less demanding, less entitled. I hope that the pain has stripped from me some of the sense of deserving and imbued in me instead a sense of making peace with what is, a sense of being easily delighted. I hope it takes less and less to bring me joy with each passing month. I hope I am increasing...

I know now that I’m strong enough, brave enough, whole enough to hold it all—how it was and

how it ended. What I got wrong, what I made right, who I was, who I wasn’t, who I’ve yet to become. What I miss, what was lost, what’s still unfolding. I’m not perfect or shiny or bulletproof. The story of my life is not a fairy tale. It’s not a horror story. It’s just a story like most stories—dark and light and beautiful and terrible and still being written.

There’s a sense that I’m waiting for a new dream, a new future. It feels weird sometimes, the empty space, but it also feels important, like I’ll know when the time comes for what’s next, like every day that passes makes me stronger, more able to live in this new world.

I’m old enough to realize we don’t get everything. We don’t get an unlimited number of do-overs or

fresh starts. There are some options that do, at some point, close for good.

But there are still a lot of ships in the harbor, to extend the metaphor. There are a thousand places on this earth my eyes have never seen. There are people who will change my life, somewhere down the road, whom I haven’t even met yet. There’s work I’ll do that I can’t even imagine right now. There’s more to learn, more to taste, more to discover. There’s more to experience, more to leave behind, more to grasp with both hands. And I’m going to. I’m going to keep walking, keep loving, keep writing, keep praying. I’m going to keep learning, keep forgiving, keep apologizing, keep moving forward. I’m going to keep inviting, keep listening, keep opening my arms to all of life—terrible and beautiful. There are meals to savor and faces to fall in love with. There are sunsets to watch like movies and

songs to dance to in the kitchen—maybe this kitchen, maybe six kitchens from now—who knows? I don’t. That’s for sure. I know less and less and less. But I feel more. I believe more. I trust more deeply in the goodness of our God than I ever have. I’m more aware of the darkness, and more grateful for the light. I’m walking away, in search of another dream, another adventure, another chance to open my heart, another opportunity to listen and learn and become a wiser, more grounded, more empathetic person than I was a year ago, and a year before that. I believe there’s more out there for all of us. I believe in second chances, in making new lives, in letting go of what’s already dead or dying in search of resurrection all around us. One story doesn’t define me.

About half the things

I said I’d never do are now things I’ve done, so I’m done making predictions.

What I see down the road—possibility, hope, beauty. I don’t know any more than that. Loss, I’m sure. Struggle. But I’m not afraid of those things the way I was before. I have a lot more close-up experience with th...

I think any of us who weather the raging storms of life and are still standing, still loving, still believing, absolutely deserve an award.

This seems to be at the heart of everything right now—a willingness to show up, unarmed and unfiltered and wildly imperfect, looking the reality of life full in the face. Willingness to show up, not out of a place of strength, but out of a shared vulnerability. Here we are. Here’s what’s been broken along the way. Here are our bruises and scars, our fears and secrets. Here I am, showing up anyway.

There’s so much I don’t know about this next season, about the world or about my own life or my own next self, but here’s what I know: there will be dancing. There will be pink dresses. There will be play. And delight and beauty and hope. And I’ll keep showing up in my ridiculous pink dress, despite my longing for invisibility. Because who knows who it is on

the sidewalk who desperately needs an infusion of whimsy or enchantment or joy. Sometimes it’s me, and sometimes it’s that sweet old man across from me on the sidewalk, and as long as we all keep showing up, keep dancing, keep seeing each other, I think we’ll all get to wherever we’re going, and I think we’ll all discover our wild, weird, brave next selves along the way.

Yes to adventure and grace and rest and delight. Yes to wild and silly and weird and delicious.

You are yes—openhearted, not closed off, willing to taste the entire world, to revel in every inch of it.

I feel that in my soul. Yes, and change course. Yes, and the future is different than you anticipated. Keep going, but keep in mind that all your plans and preparations just went out the window.

We’re okay with moving forward, as long as we get to control what’s coming next. But that’s not how it works.

Yes, and change course. Yes, into the unknown. Yes, even though everything’s different. Still yes.

say yes to second chances, staying out too late, watching the sunset like a movie, holding hands, farmers markets, taking the long way home. Is the world still beautiful? Still yes. Do our stories still matter? Still yes. Am I still hopeful? Still yes. Will I trust people?