5 Tips from the Living

What I want my kids to know while I'm still here to say it.

63. Still learning. Still here. Still theirs💙

If you found something here worth keeping, pass it on. A like, a comment, a restack — it's how The Pebble in Your Shoe finds the people who need it most. And if you have wisdom of your own to add, the comments are open. I'd love to hear what you'd put on your list.

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Who agrees that grandmothers have more than earned their own research study?

Dr. Neal K. Shah, a Johns Hopkins and NIH-funded researcher, certainly does. In an Instagram video, he speaks about why grandparents seem more joyful with their grandchildren than they were with their own children.

My children haven’t expressed this thought to me, but they see a different version of me than when they were growing up.

Emory University scanned the brains of grandmothers looking at photos of their grandchildren. The emotional center fired instantly. Scientists called it “Grandma Brain.” When the same grandmothers looked at photos of their adult children, their brains responded totally differently, not with less love, but with a different kind. The brain fired in a more thoughtful, complex way. (Translation: still love you deeply, just with a side of “have you paid your taxes?”)

The lead researcher asked the same grandmothers what was different. Not one of them talked about love, but said, “This time I’m not scared, I’m not exhausted, no one’s judging me. This time I get to show up and feel every single moment without the weight of the world on my shoulders.”

Grandparents don’t love their adult children less, but love their grandchildren in a way they wished they could have loved their own children: freely, lightly, and without the weight of the world on their shoulders. This is their second chance. And watching them take it is one of the most beautiful things a family can witness.

I watched that video three times because it named something I hadn’t found words for yet.

I was a good mother. I was also scared, exhausted, and carrying more than I knew. My children got my best and also my worst moments, my unfinished edges, my fears I hadn’t yet faced.

My grandchildren get what’s left after I put all of that down. Turns out, what’s left is actually the good stuff.

So this birthday (I turned 63 last week) I wrote some things down. Not a confession. Not an apology. A few things I know now that I wish I’d known then. The weight I’ve finally set at the door. And the things I’m still, honestly, wrestling with.

I’m writing it for my kids. None of us should have to wait until we’re gone to pass on what we know. But if you find something here, that belongs to you, take it.

1. Your house doesn’t need to be perfect.

It doesn’t have to be sterile or pass a white-glove test. It doesn’t have to look like the soft hues of a Pottery Barn spread. It doesn’t need to impress anyone. Your kids don’t care what your house looks like. They don’t need color-coordinated sofa pillows. They only need their home to feel safe, like a warm embrace, a refuge from the outside world.

So keep those pencil marks on the wall to show how much they’ve grown, frame their crayon drawings, and display their dandelion bouquets.

2. People will come and go in your life.

Your childhood friendships may not last until you’re 40. That’s normal and totally ok.

I think of the friends you made in those years on the cul-de-sac — how close you all were, how permanent it seemed. And then life moved everyone like a handful of dice thrown in the air. Not all friendships survived the distance, and I know that hurts. Childhood friends know where you came from. Later friends will know who you decided to be. You need both, but the second kind you have to go find.

What I know at 63 is that new friendships can happen faster than you’d expect, and go deeper than the ones you spent decades building. You get pickier. But you also get braver about saying, ‘I want to know you better.’ I never had that courage at 30. There’s less pretense — you show up as you actually are, not who you think they want to meet. And if it doesn’t work out, you’re okay. You’re not devastated. You’ve learned that some people are for a season, and that’s enough.

3. Don’t waste your time drinking.

I used to inventory it, shop for it, spend my hard-earned dollars on just the right bottle, and then choose the best occasion to drink it. The amount of mental energy I gave to “what should we open?” could have powered a small village. It was nothing but a means of escape. I never spent as much time chasing the ripest mango, which is food that was actually nutritious.

Looking back, I can’t name one positive thing about the experience of drinking. Back then, I didn’t know that it was a carcinogen. Now its widespread knowledge that alcohol contributes to 7 types of cancer and many diseases.

If that’s not enough, it causes you to say or do regrettable things you normally wouldn’t if you were sober. You will make plenty of mistakes on your own, don’t let drinking make you add to your list.

Plus, you feel like crap the next day. A truly inefficient hobby.

4. Your body keeps the score, but it also keeps showing up.

The body that annoys you with its allergies and menstrual cramps is a friend, not a foe. It gives you data which you should take seriously.

Think about what this body does without being asked. Your heart has beaten roughly 100,000 times today alone without a reminder, without a thank you. It grew your children from nothing. It has carried you through every hard thing you’ve ever survived, and it is still here, still showing up, still asking only that you pay attention.

When it speaks — an ache, a flutter, an exhaustion that sleep doesn’t fix — listen. It’s not betraying you. It’s trying to tell you something.

5. You are enough. You are perfect inside and out. Really.

You’ve heard this before, but I want you to really hear it. Corporations trying to sell you something invented the standard you’re measuring yourself against. The diet and beauty industry alone is worth over a kajillion dollars, built entirely on making you feel you’re not thin or pretty enough. No one actually looks like the magazine cover. Not even the woman on it! She’s been smoothed and shrunk and lit within an inch of her actual humanity.

Ok, that’s five things. I could have written fifty. But you have lives to live, and so do I.

What I can tell you is that I’m not done learning. The list of what I’m still wrestling with is probably longer than the list of what I know. Fear, for instance. Fear and I have reached a truce, but negotiations are ongoing. She still shows up uninvited, but she no longer runs the meeting.

Rest still feels like surrender some days.

And there’s a voice that occasionally asks, “Who do you think you are?” She’s quieter now, but she hasn’t left the building.

But I’m not waiting until I’m gone to say what I know. None of us should. I hope you take these words to heart.

Which brings me to this coming Tuesday.

I’m so excited to welcome Mary McGreevy to Substack Live — creator of Tips from Dead People, where the departed pass on what they wished the living knew. Join us Tuesday, April 21st at 11 a.m on Substack Live. Because this conversation — about what we carry, what we pass down, and what we finally set at the door — is one worth having while we’re still here. Just click here on Tuesday. Don’t worry, I’ll send you a reminder on Monday.

In the meantime, you can check out Mary’s Substack out below.

If you have Instagram, you can follow her there.

Can’t wait to see you on Tuesday!