The Year of Being Curious

Every year on the day before my birthday, an old friend reaches out and askes, “What is keeping you curious?”

This friend is someone I haven’t seen in almost ten years. He was in my sister’s class in high school, and we were friendly but not good friends. However, over the years, he has become an important person in my life.

His annual question, asked after giving me a synopsis of his often-peripatetic and always-poetic life, always makes me stop and think. What is keeping me curious?

Compared to my friend’s life, my life is pretty darn prosaic. I’m a mom and a wife. I work. Heck, I drive a Subaru, the ultimate MomMobile. And since Covid restructured our world, I haven’t done much outside the home. We are treading water, trying to keep our heads above the surface.

But as I told my friend, this is a season of change around here. I’m turning 50. My older child is heading to college next year and is deep into senior year activities. My younger child is in the process of auditioning for a School of Choice for high school. It’s an unsettled but exciting time.

This season of change has me thinking. I’m middle aged. Gray hairs and wrinkles are popping up more and more quickly. Soon, my children will be gone, leading their own lives. What do the next few decades hold for me?

To be honest, I don’t know the answer to that. I’ve never been good at dreaming of the future, and the present takes an awful lot of energy to manage. However, I’m determined to change that.

My fiftieth year is going to be The Year of Being Curious. I’m going to do a deep dive into what makes me curious. I’m going to take the time to explore new ideas. I’m going to plan a trip for when I turn 60, and it will be epic. (If you have suggestions, let me know!) I’m going to DREAM.

After almost two years of simply surviving, I’m going to celebrate 50 by starting to live again.