Feeling 22

 My daughter is 22 and about to go on a European backpacking adventure, attempting to go to 14 cities and 10 countries in 33 days. I'm thrilled to see her explore this adventurous side of herself, grateful that she has the confidence to go to another continent and stay in youth hostels and travel economy class on planes, trains, and buses, eating cheap food and putting in miles in her Converse with a backpack and a dream. She's newly graduated - the diploma hasn't even arrived in the mail yet! - and still figuring things out for the next phase of her life, but I can see how she is determined to have a life of meaning and hope, to avoid a life of "quiet desperation" even if I'm not sure if she knows the passage by Thoreau. I'm bursting with pride and enthusiasm for her, sharing her excitement and eager to support this grand adventure.

But this isn't about her, it's about me.

She is the exact age I was when I did a similar trip: 31 nights, 9 countries, 17 cities in the summer of 1992. It was a trip that changed my life, my entire sense of self shifting as I explored the world and my own capacities and limitations. My parents actually forbid me from going, telling me that I would get murdered, that it was a foolish idea, that it was a huge waste of money and time.

The "murdered" threats actually made me laugh. I was going to Europe, visiting cities like Paris and Brussels, hardly the dark underbelly of some war torn region or crime-ridden drug cartel run location. But I heard the message loud and clear: the world was a scary place, I wasn't equipped for it, and this was NOT how our family did things. It's true, this is not how my family did things. My family instead got pregnant as a teenager, had a shotgun wedding, and never traveled beyond Canada and the US. My parents never got to try on a bunch of careers, go out late at night dancing, or live in tiny apartments by themselves. My parents went straight to marriage and a baby, and they wanted me to do the same.

But I never wanted that. I saw how it was for them, and frankly it didn't look fun. My mother talked about her unfulfilled dreams with me, and my father's life looked bigger than hers because he was part of big projects and got to go to work with interesting people and sometimes do interesting things, but I didn't want either of their lives. I wanted to have a BIG life, one with music and dancing and interesting food and art and literature and so much travel. I wanted to meet people, to push my boundaries, to see the world and learn my place in it, not because I was born in a place and needed to live within those limitations, but because I had explored my options and chosen one.

I didn't entirely understand what I was signing up for, and while I pretended that my parents' threats didn't impact me, they did. I knew that I was on my own, that if something went wrong it would be reason for deep shame, that my hopes and dreams were foolish, that I was a disappointment to them.

Most of all, I understood how I was a disappointment, that they saw I wanted something different than what they had, and that this made them angry. They were ashamed of my desires for me, and labeled me foolish and selfish.

I went anyway. I had no idea what I was really signing up for - I had done so little in my life, and the small amounts I knew were all from books! I had never been to the movies by myself, didn't eat out by myself, certainly never spent the day in a city exploring museums by myself, and now I was getting on a plane to go overseas, where I knew nobody, where I didn't know much about anything... only that I wanted to go.

I bought a copy of Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door and read it over and over, committing it to memory. I bought a money belt, and got myself a passport. I looked at a map and made myself a plan, choosing Paris because I wanted to see the Eiffel Tower; choosing cities in Germany where my grandparents had lived; choosing Edinburgh because it seemed full of dark castles like in romance novels. I wanted to see Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam, and the Mona Lisa in the Louvre... but mostly, I had no idea what to expect. I just wanted to go.

And I did. Filled with fear, half sure that my parents were right and I was an absolute idiot, I boarded the plane. A middle aged French man moved to the empty seat next to me and flirted, and I didn't know yet that it was okay to say "no thank you" and then, if that didn't work, to say "fuck off!" so I put up with him until he got up to use the lavatory and the flight attendant said, "Do you WANT to talk to him?" and I whispered "no but I don't know how to make him go away" and she made him move seats. I'm still grateful to her: she let me know that I didn't have to put up with bad behavior, that I could have what I wanted even though a man wanted something else. An important lesson, and I hadn't even landed yet.

As I recall it, 33 years later, the rest was magic.

I wept as I visited my childhood friend Anne Frank's house (because the children of literature were my friends - weren't they yours, too?). I accidentally wandered into the red light district in Amsterdam, and my eyes opened to a whole new world. I slept in horrible bunk beds using my pre-purchased hostel sheets, and I met people from all over the world; in Marseilles I went out to dinner with two girls from Mexico, a girl from Spain, an Australian man, and a German boy in addition to a college kid from Florida. We shared travel stories and tips - have you been here? Oh, don't eat that it's so gross... try this instead! - and laughed and connected, sure in our commonalities because here we were, young and alive and living life to the fullest on our tiny budgets.

I learned that I really don't like Picasso, but the Impressionists were just as wonderful as I'd hoped. I felt something sacred in a cathedral in London. I got sexually harrassed at Hoffbrau House (when I shouted at the man who grabbed my ass as I walked by, he just shrugged and said it was a beer house, what did I expect?) and I'm indignant about it to this day. I slept on a three masted schooner in Stockholm, and I took a Rhein River cruise (I can still hear "On your left, the Lorelei!" in the accented English of the guide). I saw Hamlet's castle, and Buckingham Palace, and the Mona Lisa and the Copenhagen mermaid statue.

But most of all, I saw myself. I saw that I was brave and adventurous, and that I had capabilities beyond my own understanding. I could show up on a night train in the early morning, find a place to spend the night, convert my money, get breakfast, make friends, and then stand in front of a wonder (architecture, or a vista, or a town square, or a painting) all before 10am, filled with freedom and energy.

I learned that I was likeable, that I could make friends with ease, and that there were lots of people out in the world like me, and that I wasn't crazy or alone to want the things that I wanted. I learned that some people didn't see these trips as a really big deal, because everyone they knew did them. My family didn't care much about music, art, literature, or architecture... but the world was filled with people like me who took absolute delight in them. I learned about workers rights through striking, and the different politics of different countries. I learned what people thought about Canada, and about America, as I met people from all over the world who opened up to me, and as I traveled from country to country.

I learned that a baguette with brie, cucumber, and tomatoes, purchased from a street vendor and eaten in a train station, could be the best food in the world. I learned that I would go without sleep gladly, taking regular seats on night trains so that I didn't have to pay for a hostel, was totally worth it if it meant I got to see something new and wonderful in exchange.

I learnt that I was strong, capable, and worthy of these adventures.

Life took so many twists and turns after that: I married the wrong person, and instead of the life of travel I thought I had claimed, I didn't leave North America for more than two decades. Cancer and divorce made my life small again, as I did the things that needed to be done to just keep the wheels turning... but I've never forgotten the lessons. I'm brave. I'm strong. I'm filled with adventures. Art, music, and literature matter. I can make friends anywhere. I am a born adventurer. I can put up with some discomfort if it means that I get to really live.

I tried to teach my daughter these things, too, even if I couldn't gift her with travel from an early age. I took her to local museums (more and more against her wishes, but I tried!) and we went to concerts. We dreamed of travel together, talking about "one day..." even though we didn't know if that day would ever come.

A few years ago, a family wedding from a beloved member, and I scrimped and saved and we went to Italy. It was just as good as I'd hoped - maybe better! We went to places I'd been before, and places I'd only dreamed of. We ate focaccia and pesto pasta and pizza, and we strolled through piazzas. We marveled at Botticelli and the statue of David, and we delighted in the duomos in Firenze and Siena. I saw it in Tessa's eyes - she felt it too, the wonder and awe and excitement of it.

And now she is 22, the age I was on my backpacking trip, and she's going to do the same things I did, but in her own way, on her own schedule, and her own sets of experiences. Eurorail isn't as much of a thing as it used to be - the short plane flights are so cheap, and I guess night trains are a thing of the past. (Reminder to self: re-watch Before Sunrise to relive all of this!) But she will travel light, alone, and stay in youth hostels. She will find adventures, and find out who she really is, and she will dream big dreams. I'm doing everything I can to show my support: buying her airfare, and helping her choose her routes, taking her to the Rick Steves' store to buy travel items and to chart her course. We're reading guidebooks together sometimes, saying "did you know?" and "isn't this cool?" and she asks me a million questions and I give her advice that is 33 years out of date and then we laugh about it and try to find something a bit more current.

(No night trains. Huh. Who'dathunk?!)

And the thing is... this just brings it all back for me, at exactly the right time.

Tessa's graduation from college has done something to me that I wasn't expecting. This feels like the first time since my twenties that I get to be an adventurer, too, taking care of myself and nobody else. Tessa is raised, for better or for worse. It is the great joy of my life to be her mother, but now is a transition to something new in my life where my primary role is to be myself, not to be her mother.

What a strange sensation!

I believe that it is a parent's job to carry their children (metaphorically) on their backs to adulthood, showing them the path and taking them as far along as they can go. But with graduation, Tessa is unfolding her wings and launching into the world, ready to fledge the nest and explore on her own, to create her own nest, to come up with her own plans. I've done everything I can to raise her well, but for better or worse, now it's her time to fly.

She's flying: getting on a plane(s) to forge her own path, to have her own adventures. She's sure that this is what she wants, determined to see everything she can see.

And as she launches, I feel my own lightness of being. She's not on my back, she's out exploring the world, and though I do NOT consider her a burden (she was my choice, through and through), I notice the new lightness. Carrying someone is hard work, and I am so much lighter - it is so much easier to move! Financially, physically, spiritually... it is time for me to look inward and say, "what do I want?" and not "what does she need?" and I can proceed accordingly.

Well, it was very clear to me as her trip started to take shape that I have incredible FOMO, and that my jealousy that she would be having these huge adventures was because I want adventures too. But this time....

I can. I will. I AM!

I booked myself a week long trip during mid-winter break. I'm going to London - a place I only went for twelve hours on my trip! - and I'm spending 8 days. I have tickets to Stonehenge, and the musical Six, and the Florence + the Machine concert. I'm going to visit the Jane Austen Center, the Bodliean Library, the British Library. I'm going to have afternoon tea and cream tea and just tea. I'm going to sit in pubs, and I'm going to go to museums (though my great debate is whether I go to the British Museum, full of stolen antiquities).

I'm going! It's booked, an investment in myself. It's the off season and everything is cheaper, and I'm staying in a decent hotel in the heart of things, still very inexpensive but a far cry from youth hostels. I'm going to wear my wool coat and carry an umbrella; I want to be a little bit sophisticated, not a train hopping twenty-something. No more night trains, I've decided to stay in the one hotel and use it as a launching pad for other adventures (Oxford, Bath, Paris?), enjoying the comfort of not having to haul a bag and of getting to know an area.

Because I'm going back. I'm not going to travel once a decade, I'm going to do it at least once a year. Eight days isn't nearly long enough for London, so I'll return soon enough. If I don't take the chunnel to Paris for the day, I'll just do a trip to Paris another time.

Suddenly, I've reconnected with all those feelings of being 22, of remembering that the world is vast, and that I'm just beginning, and that adventures await because I am a born adventurer.

I found my old travel journals (not hard, filed by year in a bookcase in my study), and I read a couple entries today, and I thought, "Oh! That's me!"

I've changed (oh, the drama about silly men that I allowed; I gave them my power too easily, not realizing that I was powerful beyond my imagination), but I'm still the same. Suddenly, I'm 22 again, willing to scrimp and save to go on trips, sure that the adventure is what I'm born to do.

And I am.

Tessa's graduation is a graduation for both of us. She has completed her education, and I have completed this phase of parenting, and we are both ready to launch. I find it poetic that she will meet me in London for the concert (and for a free place to stay for a couple of days), that we will celebrate her birthday together in the West End with dinner and a play. I find it poetic that we will travel independently of one another, in different ways with different objectives, but that we will meet up in love and joy and adventure, and share our stories with one another.

I don't need FOMO, and she doesn't need my FOMO. She needs me to keep showing her how it's done: she needs me to go on my own adventures too.

I am saying "Go! Dream! Have adventures!" and this is a far cry from my parents threats about what a terrible choice travel was. I do not think she will get murdered, and I hope she finds her own equivalent of a hot Australian to kiss in the moonlight on a beach by the Mediterranean (because THAT is a good memory). I hope that if a rude middle age Frenchman unwantedly hits on her, she'll say no until he leaves, but if that doesn't work she'll say "fuck off" and call the flight attendant over. I hope she discovers a painting that touches her soul, that she finds a street market with the perfect vintage souvenir, that she makes friends, that she is exhausted by her adventures but she doesn't care. I hope she connects with some new part of her own soul, uncovering strengths and stories that shape her for the rest of her life.

I hope I do, too.

She's 22 for another week, and I'm feeling 22 again, reconnecting with the girl I once was, resurrecting her, removing the dust shrouds and shaking her shoulder. "Wake up!" I whisper in her ear. "It's time. Let's reconnect!"

What a time to be alive. How glad I am to be alive to experience this new phase - cancer and divorce didn't kill me yet, after all, and my legs are strong and my heart is thudding and I'm filled with the longing and possibilities of all of it.

Nobody told me anything interesting about middle age, about what happened after launching a child into adulthood. But if someone asks me, this is what I will say to them:

It's your time to be alive. Take delight in what you've done, and then dig deep to reconnect with yourself. They are launching, but so are you, and it's GLORIOUS.

Take the trip. Write the book. Dance at the concert. Be weird in the way that suits you best: join the coven, pull a tarot card, swim in the wild ocean in Seattle in January. Call your friends and share what you're thinking, find out if they're experiencing it, too. Hear your heartbeat, solo after these years of parenting, thudding in your chest, telling you what you love, what you crave, what you desire. Listen to it.

And go. Go, go, go. You won't be murdered, and not you're not wrong for being filled with the desire to drink deeply of all that life offers, to push the boundaries, to try something new. If you're lucky, you can make some of your dreams come true. 

Skip the take-out, cancel the streaming subscription, put yourself on hold from any purchases except the most necessary. Use up the wilted vegetables in the refrigerator to make a boring soup, so that you don't waste them. Use your library card instead of your debit card.

And buy a ticket to Paris or Prague, Tokyo or Terabithia, Nigeria or Narnia. Remember what it feels like to be filled with wonder, to feel a song in your bones, to be made to feel small on the precipice of a canyon or feet of a wondrous building or in the face of an artifact that is filled with so much history. Bite into food that surprises you. 

Just go. Go, go, go.

It's your time.

Reinventing Middle Age

 Dear Reader,

I'm trying to figure out what middle age looks like.

Do you know what it looks like? If so, can you please tell me? Because I can't find a roadmap that makes sense to me.

I think twenty or thirty years ago if you'd asked me what it looked like I would have made a snarky joke about buying a sports car, or about saggy boobs, but the truth is I didn't have a clue then, and I don't have a clue now. (Joke's on me: I have no desire nor funds for an impractical sports car, and thanks to breast cancer reconstruction my girls will be perky forever thanks to the silicone blobs that have replaced my feminine flesh.) I certainly wouldn't have predicted the permanent changes brought by cancer treatment, but I REALLY wouldn't have predicted a decade old divorce and living alone. I think my twenty-something self would have been horrified, and would have cried herself to sleep at the thought.

There-there, twenty-something self. It's really not that bad. Actually... it's really good. No, really, I'm not just saying that!

My twenty-something self was a people pleaser. She knew some very important things - like that she was strong and capable, and that her friendships would be her salvation, and that she wanted a life that was meaningful. She was filled with fire, but she bit her tongue too often around men, and played the part that she was told to play. She really, truly believed that she was unworthy of love, and so when people behaved badly she knew that this was just how it went for her. She looked at people who seemed to have it figured out and she took notes: how did they get like that? She couldn't figure it out, but she kept trying, determined and hopeful even when she was scared. (She was pretty scared.) She was aware of her people pleasing and starting to work on it.

My twenty-something self had a roadmap. There was a list of things to accomplish before marriage: college degree, career, financial independence, world travel, multiple boyfriends, live alone without roommates. The minute she ticked off those boxes, she got engaged to a nice guy, and got married a week before her 30th birthday, right on time. She knew what the future looked like: career. House. Dog. Baby. Motherhood.

And then...? I don't know. It stopped with motherhood. I could imagine PTA meetings (note: I find them colossally boring and I am a horrible PTA member, as it turns out), field trips (I loved going on Tessa's field trips!), dinner parties, sleepovers. I carved out little slivers for myself: a girls' weekend once a year if I was lucky, the occasional happy hour.

But I had no idea what came next. Anything past 40 just looked - well, it didn't look like anything. Maybe that's because I was lacking in imagination, or maybe that's because my mother's life was so different than my own (at 40, I had a 7 year old and was deep into parenting; at 40 my own mother had a daughter a couple years into college).

My twenty-something self had no idea. But honestly? My forty-something self didn't, either. Aside from noticing some crinkles around my eyes or how my knees hurt more with running, my forty-something self wasn't that different than my thirty-something self.

But here I am, fifty-something (53, if you care), and it only now occurs to me that THERE IS NO ROADMAP. Nobody wrote it. There are certainly women out there, ahead of me, forging their best lives, but I am not privy to their experiences, and often I just don't know who they are. Hollywood certainly doesn't help (Emma Thompson is a favorite actress, but I still can't get over her middle aged depiction in Love, Actually - her character is so utterly lost in her own life, so lacking spark and vitality...).

Now, before some helpful person tells me about the books that are available on middle age, and that there is a road map RIGHT HERE, let me tell you that Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway might be a brilliant character, but in no way do I desire her particular map of life. Nor do I desire to follow Maggie in Breathing Lessons.

I read every book I could find about pregnancy, parenting, marriage. But I haven't read many books about middle age. I tried recently to read a bestseller book about finding joy "in the second half of life" but I could not find myself in it - the people it was writing for are miserable, I think, and I am not miserable. Maybe I read the wrong book. I quit partway through, because it really wasn't written for me. I couldn't relate at all.

So I'm writing my own roadmap.

I have this metaphor I've been thinking about: we are often told to give our children roots and wings. When they're little we're constantly trying to make sure that they don't fly off and get lost so we clip their wings with hand holding and curfews and other sensible restraints, but now that they are launching into adulthood we are to let them fly. But I also read something that said that a child will only come into adulthood as emotionally mature as their parent(s), and so this made me think of my family's history and how in many ways I feel that I started in a dark place, and as Tessa has grown I asked her to climb onto my back, and I've been climbing the walls of this dark place, heading toward the light, carrying us both. As I've climbed, I've shown her how to climb, how to keep looking toward the life, how to continue even when exhausted, how to find footholds and places to grasp even when they aren't immediately apparent. But now she's an adult, and in moving to college, she needs to let go of my shoulders, flutter her new wings, and continue climbing and flying on her own.

The day we dropped her off at college last year, I watched her new wings unfold, and with happy tears in my eyes, hugged her and promised her that she was ready to fly. I watched her as she fluttered her wings, rose off the ground, circled above me. "Look up, Mom! I'm flying! I can fly!" I heard her spirit exclaim as we put the finishing touches on her dorm room, as I walked to the car alone.

But what I didn't know is that when I left her to fly, my own load was lighter. For better or for worse, I've taken her as high as I can go, given her my best, but what she does now is her path, not mine. I can worry, but my worry will not change things. I can advise, but she can take my advice or not. It is her life, not mine, and when she let go of me to find that life... I lightened. It is not my responsibility to find her path anymore, it is hers. My job is to cheer and support, but not to lead.

And the lightness of this is extraordinary. I didn't realize how much effort it took to carry us both out of that dark place and to the light. But when I looked up and saw the sky, I saw her circling overhead, and my heart was filled with joy. With that joy, I felt my own wings fluttering. I'd forgotten them! But they've been there all along. I can fly, too! I am lighter, and my wings can carry me now. The climbing was arduous, but the flying has such joy! I am aloft, feeling wonder, looking down at the world, my life, the path I've taken, and I'm in awe that I'm here at all.

What I want now - my roadmap - is to fly up into the sky, to experiment with floating on the currents, making lazy circles of delight, and then zooming here and there to places I want to explore. When Tessa and I find ourselves floating the same current, it's a delight: look at us flying! Hello! Helllooooo! But we also go our own ways, on our own paths. We can meet in the air, and we can meet at home (my home will always be her home, even when it's not), and we can tell each other about the adventures we've had. Sometimes we can share adventures. We can float apart, and then come back together. The nest is always here for our rest. She will undoubtedly go higher and faster and farther than I'm comfortable with. I hope she does. I'll hold my breath until she comes back, but when she does, I know that when I hear her stories I'll think, "Wait, I want to try these new things, too!" and I will fly farther and faster, too. She's teaching me, and I'm teaching her. I try to stay a few steps ahead, but when she passes me it's okay. Isn't that what I always wanted for her?

This is my map. I want to float in the currents, resume my explorations. I want to fly so that my daughter will know that she can fly, too. I want to soar so that my heart can soar.

I worked hard to get out of the dark place. My parents were young when they had me, and their parents didn't give them a model of what it's like to grow or to become who they were meant to be: some parenting manuals might have come in handy, and some support around trauma would have changed everything. I had to figure out a lot on my own; this isn't even their fault (their trauma was inherited, too), but I think it's the truth. But I've been working on it my whole life, and I hope that I brought my daughter much closer to the sky than they were able to bring me, and that I showed her a way to find her own path, and that I told the truth. I hope her journey was easier because of how far I carried her, and I hope that we never clip our wings again, never again forget that we were born to fly.

And now it's time for me to keep going, to stay a step ahead of her, to forge a beautiful life at every age and circumstance.

Middle age is learning new things.

Middle age is knowing what I love.

Middle age is keeping my close relationship to my daughter AND letting her fly.

Middle age is being honest with myself.

Middle age is having friendships that have spanned decades, and treasuring them.

Middle age is knowing that terrible things happen, but that beautiful and amazing things happen too, so I just need to ride out the former to get to the latter.

Middle age is a chance to get closer to my truth.

Middle age is a chance to let go of old lies - that I'm too fat, not good enough, not loveable, not worthy - and embrace new truths: that my body is strong, that I'm filled with love and light, that I have beautiful community, that I'm still discovering my gifts.

There is going to be loss: bodies do not always age gracefully. But I already knew that! At 35, my body got me through cancer, and there was loss, but I am still here, and in that there is so much beauty. At 42 I lost my marriage, but maybe what I lost is not as big as what I gained.

Middle age is what I make of it.

I don't have more than a glass of wine every few weeks because it makes me feel sluggish. I drink gallons of herbal tea.

I am delighted that sneakers are fashionable, because my days of shoving my feet into pointy heels that are hard to walk in are done. 

I still like a plunging neckline when I'm feeling sassy.

A bikini body is a body wearing a bikini, and since I like swimming at the beach I have a bikini body. Not a supermodel body, a bikini body. A body in a bikini.

I'm rescheduling the dinner party that got canceled due to Covid. I have a hike on the calendar for next weekend. I'm determined to write. I love my job. I still believe in love in my future, despite it all. My turn will come.

It's not pointless, and it's not sad, and it's not lonely. It's my job to find the point, to navigate sadness and find joy where it exists, and to remember the community that I have spent decades building and to feel their love.

Tessa will come home for Thanksgiving, and I will pick her up at the bus stop at the airport, and I will squeeze her so tight. She will find the silly matching sweatshirts that I bought for us with a Taylor Swift lyric we both like, and she can wear it or not but it gives me pleasure to give it to her. The house will be stocked with her favorite treats. We will follow our tradition of getting our Christmas tree up on Black Friday, reminiscing about each ornament, drinking hot cocoa, playing carols. And then afterwards I'll lean back and let her go out with her boyfriend or friends, and she'll fly far from me for a bit. I'll fly too, hiking or going to a movie or writing, safe in the knowledge that when she needs me again, she'll find me. By the time I drop her off at the bus stop at the airport, we'll both be ready for her to go. Me to do my routines - yoga class, meeting a friend for happy hour, working late, enjoying a clean sink without her dishes in it! - and her to do hers.

There is joy in this. So much joy. Anything is possible, just like it was when I was 22. I can reinvent myself over and over again, and build community along the way, and lose and discover myself over and over again. Though there has been pain on the journey, it got me to where I am now, and I like where I am now.

I'm strengthening my wings, getting better at flying. I'm discovering new things, new people, new places, new plans. When Tessa and I meet in the currents, I've got a huge smile on my face. We can fly! Look at us, isn't it crazy? Marvelous? Miraculous?

I'm watching my own progress, writing it down, so that one day when my daughter notices that she's got strands of silver in her hair will smile and think, "I've got this!" and she'll see the color of starlight and whitecaps and waterfalls, not decay. No, decay isn't silver.

I have a gray stripe that I thought of dying; my hairdresser was horrified. "People pay to make a stripe like that!" she told me. I don't know if she was lying, but I don't mind. I have grown to like it - my flash of silver in one swoop that frames one side of my face. I don't look 20-something, but I don't think I look "old" either. I just look like myself. Still learning, still hoping, still exploring. Still loving. Still trying. Still believing in the silver light of the stars. Still flying in their light.

And that's enough roadmap for me.