Yes AND No
One of the great gifts of getting older is that it gets much easier to say both yes and no.
For most of my life, I felt a constant need to experience everything, know everyone, and hear the full story. Even now, I still feel that familiar tug. One more thing. One more conversation before I leave. It’s probably why I’ve been running late my entire life.
Of course, that approach was never practical. There simply isn’t enough time. And learning that, truly learning it, has been a long and ongoing process.
Saying no has always been hard, especially when someone asks for help, particularly if the request comes wrapped in a compliment. If someone thought I was good at something, or uniquely qualified, I was in. I loved being needed.
When my kids were little, I was a stay-at-home mom. It was a role I loved, and also struggled with. My identity was so tied to achievement: my education, my career ambitions, making good on the sacrifices my parents made when they immigrated to the U.S. to escape Communism. Being fully available to my kids felt like a gift, especially with a husband who worked and traveled so much. But it also came with guilt and a persistent sense of wondering what else I should be doing.
For years, I worried my kids might see me as less accomplished or less respectable than their friends’ working parents. Only recently did I learn how deeply they appreciated those years. That realization has been both joyful and a relief at a deep level.
That underlying guilt fueled my inability to say no. I volunteered for everything: homeroom mom, school board, fundraiser chair, chapter president, head of the HOA, football mom. I treated these roles like full-time jobs. I loved being asked. But somewhere along the way, the responsibilities began to crowd out the very reason I had chosen to be home in the first place.
I didn’t know how or when to say no. And some part of me didn’t want to. Being busy, and looking busy, filled a need I hadn’t fully named.
A coach friend once described me as a hummingbird, darting everywhere and endlessly busy, who needed to become a jazz pianist instead. I still identify with the hummingbird. I am just learning to land a little more often.
Time has a way of clarifying things. When I was younger, missing a party felt unbearable. Today, I can genuinely feel happy for those who went and equally content staying home. Once you start seeing more road in the rearview mirror than through the windshield, decisions about what deserves a yes and what requires a no become a bit clearer.
It helps that the asks are fewer now. Becoming less relevant, and more invisible, is not easy. But there is an unexpected freedom in it. Watching Matlock with Kathy Bates recently, I was struck by how her character embraces that invisibility and uses it as a quiet advantage. She sees more. Hears more. Moves differently through the world.
At the same time, saying yes has become easier in a different way. I can feel the ground moving faster beneath my feet. I am now far older than the people I once thought were old. Time feels precious. Opportunities feel fleeting. Health is never guaranteed.
So I say yes freely to time with my 91-year-old mom, to being with my kids and extended family, and to planning the next trip or adventure. And thankfully, my grounded, practical husband remains one step ahead of me on the budget front, keeping us in balance, sometimes to my mild irritation.
These days, I say yes and no more deliberately. More comfortably. Still with some guilt, but less so. I hope there will always be more yeses than nos. But whatever comes, I’m trying to meet it with a little more courage and humility.
