Reading Between the Years
This is a space for the conversations that don’t fit neatly into headlines, talking points, or inspirational slogans about aging.
We’re two friends in our sixties, living this season in real time — the physical changes, the relational shifts, the unexpected griefs, and the freedoms no one prepared us for. We’re not here to offer advice or tidy conclusions. We’re here to talk about how it actually feels.
Each episode, we read between the years — the years behind us and the ones still unfolding — and name the emotions that often go unspoken. The doubts, the humor, the tenderness, the anger, the gratitude. All of it belongs.
If you’re tired of the rhetoric and ready for the real story, you’re in the right place.
Pull up a chair. This is Reading Between the Years.
Reading Between the Years
Chapter 11: Intentionally?
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(Did You Do That On Purpose...?)
Good morning, everybody. Hi, it's us again. It's mean and Judy. I'm in a different location today, but that's fine. Uh life gets busy, right? I'm sure you're all as busy as the rest of us are. So, but I'm excited to take some time again today and have a conversation about just reading between the years, right? Talking about all the joys and trials and tribulations that come with uh aging in general. But first, the mugs. Let's see your mug. My mug first?
SPEAKER_02Okay. Yes. So you're gonna laugh. This is the Uranus Fire Department mug.
SPEAKER_00Uranus Fire Department.
SPEAKER_02Uranus fudge factory and general store. Get your fudge in Uranus, Indiana. Oh my gosh, that's awesome! My husband bought this for me. It's awesome.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's absolutely perfect. Oh my word. That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, if you guys look those people up, they're at uranusindiana.com. Sponge. But apparently they have really good fudge and they pack their own fudge. There are fudge packers, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I hear that. I hear that. So then mine's gonna look stupid. Mine's just a Detroit Tigers. I love that one. This is what I so I tell you, my job does a great job with Secret Santa. They it's like we always set the $20, $20 a person, and it's all within our department. And people are spending so much, especially when you give them something nice and easy like Detroit Tigers. This is a beautiful, this is just a Detroit Tigers mug. Every day I drink from Met and Hope. Please let no one else get injured, please. No kidding. That's that's a gorgeous mug. Is that navy blue or black? Yeah, it's navy blue, it's got orange on the inside. Yeah, it's really pretty.
SPEAKER_01Oh man, fancy.
SPEAKER_00Maybe trying to like all good things. My birthday's at the end of the year.
SPEAKER_02Hint hint.
SPEAKER_00I love that. Well, today I think we're gonna we're gonna spend some time. This topic has come uh kind of around quite often in our just conversations that Judy and I have with the word, the word is intentionality, right? The word, especially when it comes to relationships. I was thinking about this this morning, you know, when you're in school and when you go, even if you go through college and other, you know, higher education after that, or if you have a regimented job, you're you really don't have control over much. When you're younger, you go where you go, you're told where to go, you're told when to go there, and all of those things. I remember when I was uh just out of college. So I went to college, got a bachelor's degree, then went on to a different school. And every six months I get this itch. It's like, I aren't I supposed to move, aren't I supposed to go somewhere? Because it'd be a semester end and you go home or you move out, or the school year would be over, which by the way is a lot shorter than it seems when you're in it. I'm floored by how short it is. But I would think that I needed to change something. You know, you're you're you get on this rhythm where you know, school year's over, you go to a classroom, your friends are your friends because of proximity. And I think that that's the that's the biggest thing for me is so many things that we do when we're in those situations, the relationships form, which makes sense because you have a common interest, but sometimes even the deeper relationships form, specifically in romantic relationships, simply because of proximity. It's like you start dating the coworker because they're there every day, they'll be all right, but it they come, it's like they're presented to you. Yeah, it's not anything that you purposely bring into your life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, you get to know them through work and not necessarily any other avenue.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So I think that as you kind of, you know, you you build up all these relationships and all these things that you're involved in, and then hopefully, if you have the ability, you kind of wean things out as you get older and go down into, you know, less groups that you're meeting with all the time, or different, you just aren't as involved in so many things if you're lucky. So if you want things in your life, you have to be more intentional about it. And I think that that's something that is interesting in my world because who I'm choosing to be around is very different than once than who I would have before. And I think that's directly a result of the work that I've done and what I allow and accept in my life.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's a really good point. And while you were talking, I was thinking, you know, the going back to the school year thing, especially when you're younger, you know, you're told where to go to school. You the only really friend options you have are people that you go to school with because that's who you know, or people you go to church with, or you know, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, something like that. Um, it's very, very boxed in, it's very controlled. I mean, for one reason to keep us all safe and to educate us, but for another reason, it's just that's just who our world is. And I remember thinking after our middle kid graduated from college finally, I could not get used to. It took me probably two years to get used to not, you know, my life, our life, not revolving around the school year, September through May or September through June, because almost all aren't except for six years, because we had we waited six years to have kids after we got married. Except for that, our entire marriage so far had been, you know, around everything happened around the school year. You know, you don't go on vacation unless it's spring break or or winter or Christmas or whatever or summer. You can't do that because your kids are in school. And so my brain had to readjust when it came to wait, I don't have to worry about the school year anymore. It can just be a regular year, like I could be normal. What do I do? How do I do that? We can go on vacation in October. Oh wow, you know, stuff like that. And now we probably, if we're lucky, we take two vacations, maybe one in the spring, but we mostly go the end of September because school's already started and everything's cheaper. Yep.
SPEAKER_00You know, well, also during COVID, we loved it during before COVID hit, and everybody could be schooled at home because after September is when we would go camping, and it would just be a bunch of us little grandparents, all of us grandparents walking the beach up in Fisherman's Island because everybody else was back in school. Right. And then people people learned how to, or they were allowed to do virtual classes, and they would camp you around. There were kids, families at the campgrounds all the time because the kids could just do their lessons and go back out and play. Ruined it all, I'm telling you. But you get credit as you get a lot of credit in my mind because I laugh every time spring break comes around, and everybody's like talking about spring break. And I know the majority of these people don't have kids in school anymore, but they still have that click in their head. It's like you're not going somewhere for spring break, you don't have kids in school. Just say you're going on vacation. And secondly, why would you want to go when everybody else is going? You now have options.
SPEAKER_02You have options before or after. Why would you want to, you know, down in Florida or somewhere in San Diego when there's college kids there getting drunk and dying? And yeah, that's funny because I have heard people who are who are empty nesters use the term spring break. It's like, what are you breaking from? Yeah. There's in because that comes from a school-based idea.
SPEAKER_00It definitely is. But I think it's yeah. So thinking deeper more about how relationships, especially like I said, love relationships, build from proximity. I mean, certainly people are presented in your life at a certain time, maybe if you believe for a certain reason. So it's great if that is, you know, they just hired the new guy and he we just click, and that's wonderful. But I also think that it's an easy way to not have to do your background checks on people. And I don't mean literal background checks, but it you don't vet them as much, I think, if you work with them and you have those day-to-day. Well, they seem to be okay at work every day. Interactions, yeah, but you have no idea what they're like. My first husband I met, we were at a catering company together in Seattle, and it was more and and I think back on it, I mean, I don't regret it, but thinking of who else was working there at that time, was he just the best option? Did I pursue him because he wasn't the guy that wasn't interested in me at all? Wasn't the guy that I wasn't interested in, you know what I mean? Right.
SPEAKER_02Was it just, yeah, that kind of why did he have to be an option? Like, yeah, you said best option. I'm like, is somebody forcing you to pick someone to work with? What well, but or is it just a mindset?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't know. But it's it's it's wonderful if you take the time to still get to know people outside of work and so the relationship can develop so it's real, but it's it's wonderful to be in a point in my life where I can say, you know what, if if this person and I aren't dealing on the same committees anymore, I don't have to be around them because I don't I don't feel like they bring anything to my life and I don't really want anything to do, you know. It's nice to be tap out of some of those relationships that were kind of from convenience and from whatever board you were appointed to or whatever committee you were on. Yeah, it's it's a nice sense of freedom, I feel.
SPEAKER_02I agree. It's totally, and sometimes you don't realize it until after they've been out of your life for a while and you think, I don't miss them. Why did like uh some relationships, like even when our kids were younger and you developed it because you're on PTA or you carpooled with people, you know, for school or for soccer or something like that. And that you think, you know, if it wasn't for this particular situation where we're being kind to each other, I probably wouldn't pick you as a friend. And then there's the opposite happens as well. You then you make good friends, you know, you communicate, and sometimes we have those people that we don't talk to for 20 years, and then when you pick up that conversation again just haphazardly, nothing's changed. Yeah, you're you're still close because you're still of the same kind of mindset, the same background. Um and then there's just those people that fade away. And I remember our daughter telling telling me she said she was realizing that in their life, because they're early 30s, she was just realizing that oh my gosh, friends come and go. And it's a transient thing. And she was sad that this one person didn't talk to her anymore. And she had moved away, you know, from from Washington, all Washington State, all the way to Iowa. Well, she doesn't speak to me anymore. I'm like, well, she has a different life, yeah. You know, it's a completely different life, and she lost her family because of divorce or something like that. Not love didn't lose her family, but she was going through a lot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, and I said, Abby, just it doesn't mean she she hates you or anything. No, it just means that it's things have changed, and it that's sometimes that's hard to accept. And other times it's it's easy. You don't know what I can fix it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's uh and I remember telling my kids in that same thing it was, and you can choose to not be friends with people as well. You can be the one that chooses that that relationship has run its course, it's run its usefulness. Not that we want to go around with uh what's in it for me type attitude, but there has to be something there that I hope that people want things to make your life better and serve a kind of a role, but maybe you don't realize that when you're young. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, whether a a relationship is beneficial or not.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And when you're young, it's just who you know, you know. I mean, that's how clicks form and uh there becomes the popular people and the not popular people, especially I'm thinking high school, you know, high school years and stuff like that. But yeah, they've made you know hundreds of movies about it, like mean girls.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah. You know, that's yeah, it's definitely something that I'm thinking about now because I have our 45th high school reunion this year, and um, and then we're also getting together, a group of us from college are getting together as well. And I was all excited about it. Yeah, that sounds great, but you know, as it gets closer, I don't, I mean, I even helped plan part of the high school one. It's like, do I do I want to do this? Do I want to go? Am I to a point where I want to not bring up that feeling or I, you know, I don't know if I want to get back into that. I don't, I don't have bad memories, but it definitely wasn't a time either point where I felt good about, you know, or confident, or and I don't want to go back it under the guise of I'm gonna prove to you that I turned out to be something. I don't want to do that, and I feel so much my genuine self on my day-to-day interactions, more so every day. It's amazing how I feel like there's this profound shift in the world in general, but definitely in how I feel about myself. So, do I want to risk going back into both of these major groups in my life? Because I was a part of a team in college, and so we spent hours together every day, and we would travel and we would do all this stuff. And do I wanna do I want to invite the that back into my life, risking that I may fall back into those old feelings again? You know, yeah, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I mean, they sound like great trips, but I don't know that I wanna I I I like it kind of as a memory. I like it more of a, yep, I did that, yep, it was cool, yep, that's where I went to high school, but I don't know that I want to go back.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. I don't know. I I I have to believe, well, maybe not. I I swam with a bunch of really strong women that nobody else is feeling that way, but I just all of a sudden the excitement is gone, and uh just kind of this sense of I don't know has kind of taken its place.
SPEAKER_02Is it a destination reunion?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, the one the high school one is whatever, it's a few hours, you know, and then but the other one is gonna be renting a house on the lake shore here. Everybody can get together. It holds like 30 people, and they're gonna do like a two-night stay and everybody get together. I just have this image of me, you know, sitting on the edge of the table or always trying to find the place to go sit. You know, I'll go out by the fire pit or I'll go out by the pool and you know what I mean? And because I don't know. Does it cause anxiety trying to just even think about it? College is was rough for me, man. I I yeah.
SPEAKER_02Which one is the one out by the lake, high school or college? That's gotta be college, college, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. I I I am I went to a my tenure reunion um from high school, and I had just had a baby two two months beforehand. Of course, you you're thinking, I don't want to be here, I'm exhausted, and who has my child? And yeah, you know, luckily it was Graham and Grandpa at the time. But yeah, it was it worth it looking back now. No, not one bit, not one bit. I mean, did I have fun and see some people? Yeah, yeah. The guy I sat next to in junior high and high school for band for six years. We both played the saxophone after high school had grown like six inches, and so it was kind of a shock to see him. Um, other people hadn't changed a bit. Yeah, not changed a bit, and everybody treated everybody the same. Well, and that's it. It's like do I like that's the competition with what have you been doing, where are you, you know, um, how much money do you have? What are you what are you doing as a job? And and did you go to college? You know, it's it was still the same. Everything was the same. So thinking about what you're doing right now, for me, nah, never. Nope, don't bother. My world is so completely different than it was back then. Um, we see more many more people because my husband and I both went to college together. Um, we we see many more people from college, and we're part of an alumni association there. Um, we see them at pastoral events, but that's you know, it's still a superficial relationship. You know, we don't socialize with um people from high school or college. I haven't spoken to somebody from my high school for 40 years. It just yeah, just it's not there. I I didn't even have that many relationships in high school, yeah. To to even, you know, so like you said, if we're talking intentionality, that's it's definitely the people that are in our lives now that we value, that we're intentional with, and of course our children and their families. Um, but in the past, it's just it's it's evolved so differently. Yeah, everybody else everybody's does. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I do I yeah. I don't know. I didn't even think about that until just we started talking. It's like I have to well, I'm not gonna discourage you from going to these. No, no, no. I really, but it's like I I don't trust that I because I feel so kind of new in this sense of where I am now that I don't I don't want to go back to feeling less than and you know not part of the cool kids club. And I mean, I was successful, I was successful as a human being. I mean, all outward outward appearances, but I don't know that I'm willing to test the the strength of the scabs that have kind of grown over the other and you've mentioned that you've mentioned that a lot in the past about how your dad was so um um focused on work, and so you um you bought in not bought into, but that was a focus in your life was performance.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, um, and you just said it again was, you know, I've you know, outside um performance, or I can't remember which what term you just but yeah, what do you do do you want to go there? Are you content with who you are now and you don't give a damn?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, but that should also be a reason to go, right? Because I don't, because I've I've built a good I've built a good foundation now. Yes, yes, yeah, yes, right. It could be the opposite. Yeah, could be the opposite, but it's like the other thing is what what is this gonna bring? I'm really good at surface relationships. I think you and I have a couple other people where it goes deeper. It's like I'm a small talkie, you know, quippy type person, but if you want to know more, nope, because I think um that's burned me in the past, right? You invest in people with your with letting that vulnerability show. And then, like I had this girl, how are we getting close to our time? Uh had this girl in great in uh junior high who was always uh friends with the star of that season. So it was like when it was basketball season, she was friends, and I had a couple of those, and it's like I didn't ever really go deep with these girls when I was in college with them. Why would I think that I'm gonna sit around and talk about this stuff now?
SPEAKER_02Maybe you might not talk about that stuff. You're gonna talk about today. Yeah. Um, but I think with our careers, we have to. You were mentioning something about having superficial conversations or relationships. We kind of have to be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02At least for 10 or 20 minutes when you're in with a patient in the back of an ambulance. You have to have a superficial relationship with them.
SPEAKER_00Um, but yeah, I I'm so much more comfortable with that than I am with, like I said, except for a few of you, I'm so much more comfortable with the bull bull, uh, you know, just kind of chit-chatting with the patients as I am. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Me too. Yeah. I can, I can, I can uh I don't want to say it's it's it's not false, it's just congeniality. Yeah. Um for 10, 20 minutes. Yeah. Even even three, you know, introductions and what do you say when you meet someone new and and you know they're gonna come back in your life because maybe they go to your church or maybe they're your new neighbor or something like that. What do you say? What do you do? I have to be friends with them now. Do I have to have coffee with them every morning? No, you know, but do I have to be, you know, congenial with them? Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Luckily, we've been the same neighbors since we moved here, all of them the same. Um, and all our neighbors are fantastic.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, get together all the time and talk and yeah. Do they do they know you know you, or is it still super?
SPEAKER_02Um I think the the elderly couple that live across the the way over here um know us better because their their kids are our age. Um, the other three is more I guess I guess more superficial. Um, but our neighbor behind us, we know each other pretty well. We she's yeah, former student of mine.
SPEAKER_00Oh goodness, nice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So yeah, I mean it it's kind of a mix. You can't really describe them because all four of our neighbors are pretty different.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, but yeah, I kind of got off track there, didn't I?
SPEAKER_00But it's interesting which ones you choose to go deeper with, too. It's like it's I don't know if it's a safety thing or a time thing, but I think it's both, and I also think it's need. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um, because um Maggie will call me and say, Rod, sell, I need your help. I don't want to call 911. Come over here and help me pick him up. Okay. And then she shares a lot about her grandkids, and so you know, I bake for them every once in a while. You know, she'll call and say, Rod needs some chocolate. You got any cupcakes? And like I it will, I will bring you some, you know. So we share things like that. And we've been neighbors for all uh 14 and a half years. Have we ever had them over for dinner? No, yeah. Have we been over there for dinner? No, because we can just walk over there and sit in their driveway and have a drink with them if we want, but we just, you know, there's it's yeah, all four of them are very different, just like all the people in high school or college. It just depends on who they are and what role they play in your life. But I'm very interested, and you're gonna have to give us an update about your reunion. I really want to know if I go what happens. Now I want you to go, just so you can tell us all about it. Because it's it's gonna be it's gonna be great.
SPEAKER_00Knowing you, Dana, you're gonna be great. I don't know. We'll figure it out. Well, anyway, another chit chat kind of around the horn here with Judy and Dana. Thank you so much for your time. Yes, thank you for being with us, you guys. Yeah, we're uh expanding onto more platforms. So please take the time to, if you listen, let us know what you think. We welcome comments. You could be the first one to leave us a comment as we move forward in this little process. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02Take care, you guys. We'll see you next week. Bye, Jaina. Bye.