> CD #65: 2008

It’s springtime in Calgary, which apparently means scattered snow flurries and a windchill of -20°C/-4°F. Our spring weather makes me want to find a light-coloured lined wool coat—one that could still keep me warm, but doesn’t look quite as “now is the winter of our discontent” as the down parka I continue to trudge around in. I mean, it’s April. I need renewal.

I already own a wool coat, but it has stayed in the closet mainly because I bought it at a time when everything I wore was super slim-fitting. Now I can’t get the sleeves on over any of my current (admittedly oversized) sweaters.

The coat is circa 2008, which feels like just a few years ago, but everything in my life—and the world, maybe?—has changed since then. In 2008, I didn’t have any children. I had been on Facebook for just a few months. I was working on a prose memoir and had only just started reading graphic narratives.

I wore very small, tight clothing, which is how most women dressed back then. It was “shrunken” or “baby” everything, lol, except maybe for the jeans, which were very snug but also bootcut, so at least our ankles could be free from constraint?

My 2008 self was deep into Ugly Betty and Mad Men, both of which I recently started over again for no particular reason and still find enjoyable, so I guess I haven’t changed completely.

But it does feel like the Teresa who first watched those shows was a girl who had no clue about anything in this world. She was well-intentioned, sure, but extremely naive. She definitely couldn’t have predicted how jaded and wizened she would feel only 13 years later.

I don’t have nostalgia for 2008—I was just as lost then as ever—but I do like to revisit specific eras in my mind because I think there is value in noting how much has changed, how much I’ve changed. I also want to make sure I am continuing to outgrow old skins (or coats, as it were), shedding that which no longer fits and giving myself room to be bigger.

The writer Oliver Burkeman (author of the book on my nightstand right now, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals) had a great advice column in The Guardian a few years back, where I came across this nugget:

When stumped by a life choice, choose “enlargement” over happiness. I’m indebted to the Jungian therapist James Hollis for the insight that major personal decisions should be made not by asking, “Will this make me happy?”, but “Will this choice enlarge me or diminish me?” We’re terrible at predicting what will make us happy: the question swiftly gets bogged down in our narrow preferences for security and control. But the enlargement question elicits a deeper, intuitive response. You tend to just know whether, say, leaving or remaining in a relationship or a job, though it might bring short-term comfort, would mean cheating yourself of growth. (Relatedly, don’t worry about burning bridges: irreversible decisions tend to be more satisfying, because now there’s only one direction to travel – forward into whatever choice you made.)

It’s something I think about often—finding new ways to grow, seeking expansiveness in my work, relationships and experiences, and holding myself open to possibility. In 2008, I could not imagine all the ways my life would enlarge—explode?—in the years to follow. But I’m bigger now, and I know better.

:) Teresa

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