Stumbling Into My Wise Old Sage Era

Surely this much calamity can't be normal.

A few weeks ago, my 12-year-old dog Buster walked into a chair.

This would have been easy to ignore, because I have three children and they are chaotic and thus my house is chaotic unless they’re asleep, and sometimes even then. The children walk into chairs, tables, walls all the time.

But Buster doesn’t. I immediately clocked the anomaly and observed as he stumbled from the dining room to the living room, his back legs crossing and tripping him up as he walked, his head leaning slightly to the left. When he reached the couch, instead of hopping up and making a nest out of the blankets, he turned and looked to me for help.

I picked him up, tucked him into the blankets on the couch, then called my husband Matt.

“Something’s wrong with Buster. It seems like something with his vestibular nerve. I’m worried he might have had a stroke, but it could just be an inner ear infection affecting his balance.”

Matt took Buster to the vet that afternoon and texted me the doctor’s findings. “She thinks it might be vestibular, possibly a stroke. She's going to check for an ear infection to see if that's causing balance issues.”

That was the weird part. You see, I am not a veterinarian or a medical professional of any sort, although I have watched several seasons of House and I’m never not thinking about that episode of Grey’s Anatomy with Kyle Chandler and the bomb. So how did I predict the same prognosis as the vet did?

Because I had seen this before. And that’s when I realized: I am becoming a wise old sage.

I’ve always wanted to be one of those calm old ladies who listens quietly as someone speaks, and really hears what they say. I want younger generations to come to me with their troubles so I can remain unruffled and then, my piercing gaze fixed on them through Benjamin Franklin glasses, drop a one-line truth bomb. I want what every woman wants, which is to be as composed as Meryl Streep.

I’ve been a wife and a mother for a decade now. I’ve been nervous and anxious the whole time, stumbling through every event and decision like I had my own metaphorical vestibular issue. My first decade of parenthood was punctuated with mistakes and missteps. Every time a kid had a fever or a sore throat, I fretted over whether or not it warranted a call to the doctor. Every minor disaster sent me spiraling, paralyzed by the task at hand.

But not anymore, because I’m a wise old sage now. It must have happened slowly at first, but it’s all rushing in on the wings of my 40th birthday. And honestly, I'm feeling it.

I’m responding to my little disasters with more composure. Last month, I came out of the grocery store and found that someone had completely smashed the front end of my brand new car. My instinct was to fall into my comfort spiral. Instead I took a deep breath and overrode the instinct. A few people stopped to lament while I waited for the tow truck to come, but I took an uncharacteristically positive approach. “It’s fine. Nobody got hurt. We can fix it.” The positivity was performative (take that, Meryl), but in the end, it actually was fine, and I handled it, and my car was good as new within a week.

I’ve made so many mistakes that I can’t help but have learned from them. I recently hosted my tenth Thanksgiving, and it was such a breeze. I spent nine years undercooking the sides, burning the rolls, worrying about drying out the turkey, and doing more than I could handle. This year it all clicked and I had the whole perfectly cooked feast spread out on the table with a Mary Poppins wave of the wooden spoon. I think if you do something poorly for long enough, eventually you accidentally figure out how to do it well.

Lately I’ve been able to look back at all my so-called disasters and remember how impossible life felt. The last decade has been filled with curve balls, one right after the other, sometimes even all at once, which feels like it goes against the rule book. Every time I brought a newborn home from the hospital, we had to replace a furnace or a hot water heater. Impossible. One of those newborns was colicky for months on end. Impossible. I spent a year facilitating remote kindergarten for my oldest while trapped in the house with a toddler and a baby. Impossible, I tell you! I can still remember the pressure of it all, which was again metaphorical but also a very real physical pressure that I felt bursting in my chest and weighing on my shoulders. Surely this much calamity can’t be normal, I’ve thought to myself. Surely I’ve earned a break. But there are no breaks! Life just keeps going.

And I mean, that’s good. That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?

Really what I’ve earned is the wisdom. Wise old sages aren’t born wise (or old). They get there from experience. A curveball is much easier to hit when it's a pitch you've already seen.

When I was a kid, my family had a German shepherd named Coco. One night Coco started stumbling when she walked, her head leaning to the left. I sat in the backseat with her while my dad drove to the vet’s office, where the vet told us Coco was experiencing vertigo from a vestibular nerve issue. I tucked that info in my back pocket and saved it for when I needed it. Coco was good as new a few days later, and so was Buster after we treated him with an entire pharmacy of dog pills to clear up the inner ear infection that was affecting his vestibular nerve.

So here it is! I’ve stumbled right into my wise old sage era. Things are going to be a lot easier from here on out. I truly believe that. And even if I don’t, I’m going to pretend I do. If I can’t be as composed as Meryl, I’ll at least give an Oscar-worthy performance.

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Our January theme is “new beginnings.” Check back next Thursday for another essay on this topic by

Sarah Radz

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