Nudged: Book a mid-week lunch date (unlike any other)

By Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, Guest Nudger

I was thrilled when Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos agreed to be a Guest Nudger. For her Nudge, she drew “Book a Mid-Week Lunch Date” and ran with the idea to make it her own. Read on for inspiration, then decide who you’d like to meet for lunch this week. –Kathleen

Months ago, I agreed to participate in 52Nudges. I had hoped to time a guest post with the print date earlier this year of my commissioned peer-reviewed paper (equal parts deeply researched and heartfelt), “An IVF Survivor Unravels ‘Fertility’ Industry Narratives.” Life, however, held other plans for both me and Kathleen (see “The Great Pause of 2022”).

Originally, I fully intended to talk about what it meant to be an IVF survivor to my younger “expectant” self—the one on the verge of her first in vitro-fertilization meant to deliver her much-desired child. I’d always been a goal-driven, hard-working person. Back then, when I put my nose to the grindstone, I fully expected to succeed. I’ve since mellowed and realized failures have much to teach us.

What my younger self didn’t fully understand then, was how messy and unpredictable life could be. Nor did I fully comprehend that after devastation, reinvention and perseverance don’t come easily. It takes far more than moxie to move freely or with unbridled determination in a completely different direction.

And so, my Nudge is a mid-week lunch date with the Pamela I was in 2003 (just as I was about to turn 40), and the Pamela I plan to become as I approach 2023. It coincides with the eve of my 60th year on this planet and my 45th anniversary of journaling before I turned to blogging in 2007.

What Happened: June 12, 1963, marks the date when Pamela Jeanne arrived wide-eyed and curious. With each passing year, I eagerly anticipated birthday milestones, hungry to know what new adventures awaited, how the new year would shape, challenge, and transform me.

June has traditionally been my month to reflect and celebrate.

June 2022, however, came with the demands of a diva and the déjà vu of 2003. My strategy to greet a new milestone and decade were put on indefinite hold.

One year after my father passed on, it was clear my mother needed me to attend to her much-needed (and painful) hip replacement surgery. Plans for a 2022 birthday celebration near the Pacific Ocean and Carmel Valley: cancelled. Within days of June’s arrival, I was once again in the Michigan house where I grew up as a girl. I slept opposite the door holding my height changes captured in pencil markings. Mid-day this June meant hospital rehab sessions.

I finally have some quiet time for a mid-week lunch date between Pamela on the cusp of 59 and Pamela on the cusp of 39. What wisdom and counsel can I share?

First, Pamela Jeanne, while your life plan will alter in ways that will test you to your core, you possess the strength deep down to soldier on. The pain you will carry will cause you to doubt yourself and your relationships and knock you far off course, but it will also be the catalyst for connecting with others who have faced the same burden, the loss of control, and an alteration of being. You will make lifelong friends, bond through your shared burdens, and leave a different sort of legacy. You will help pioneer a new form of healthcare activism and societal understanding around the many ways women who are not mothers nurture, contribute, and animate our world.

Second, 20 years from now, you will understand more fully that life is equal parts what happens to us and how we respond. Sure, that’s easy to say, but not so easy to live. It will appear that the joyful times are gone in the blink of an eye while the demanding, personally challenging, and, yes, sad times will never end. That’s because it’s the difficult times that mold, shape, and school us.

This also makes the joyful times something to treasure fully. Take heart in blissful birdsong, wondrous cloud formations, and starry nights. Cherish laughter with friends and family and strangers alike. Embrace the bad and the good, and be gentle with yourself. You will stumble, but you will rise.

Keep three Rs in mind: Recovery from hardship takes time and patience. Resilience is your superpower. Reinvention makes life both motivating and fresh. These concepts are core to surviving and thriving.

More Ah-Hahs: Lastly, while your scars are not visible, fundamentally, you are a fighter in the best sense of the word. You, like many who have inspired and connected with you along the way, possess the depth of spirit and strength necessary to challenge the status quo and pave new paths.

Happy Birthday, Pamela Jeanne. More adventures await….