Nudging: 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.