Tuesday Kuykendall

Have you ever wondered why modern culture seems so obsessed with the calendar? I wonder sometimes what life would be without it. If we marked time by the seasons and the night sky like the ancients, would we still worship youth or mark success in the same way? Would it matter how old we are? And what about resolutions? Would we make them; or would we set up reasonable goals for ourselves and simply strive to meet them?

I think we humans love the idea of new beginnings. The opportunity for a fresh start, reinventions. I’ve learned to refrain from New Year’s resolutions; I never keep them, and while it’s a small thing, it smacks too loudly of failure. But reinvention—that’s something I’m intimately acquainted with. My early draft of this essay went through the several times in the past I had to start over, to rethink my whole life path. But I cut it out. Who cares what was? I’m not writing a memoir. This is the year of looking forward.

But 2025 stands out for me as the year everything changed.

In late 2024, I quit a horrible job, believing that, like every other time I experienced unemployment, I would find a new one within a few months. LinkedIn had hundreds of posted jobs I was plenty qualified for, but I never could get past the screening interview. The only thing that had changed was my age.

If this were fifty years ago, it might make sense; but today, we live long, healthy lives. I have ten to twenty years of mental acuity and physical energy to keep working. I wallowed in self-pity and anger for a while. But I didn’t stay there.

It was hard at first, devastating. I loved being in a lab; taking things apart to see why they did or didn’t work; using materials characterization instruments like they were toys; geeking out about glass transition temperatures; discussing LabVIEW over lunch with my colleagues.

Sometimes I still miss my old life. I’ll get an invite to a webinar to learn about some new material or method from a company I forgot to unsubscribe from and, sadly, delete it. Those are fewer every day, and pretty soon, the only things that will show up in my inbox will be spam and the occasional writing thing.

I’ve been able to try on so many personas: a mom, bank teller, college student, daycare provider, pizza delivery driver, teacher. Scientist.

All those crooked paths were not the life I thought I wanted. For a long time I was a tumbleweed, tossed about, reacting to life instead of controlling it. But I can’t regret anything because, if my life had been any different, I wouldn’t have the amazing people I have in my life and I wouldn’t be able to causally sit here in my little home office corner and jabber on about my life and how much it’s changed in a single year.

Dare I say it? I love writing as much as science!

I have too much to be grateful for to justify self-pity, it’s unbecoming. I get to live in a free, spacious city that’s beautiful, clean, and green. We have so many trees! I have two amazing children who married well and three adorable grandchildren.

My husband is genuinely supportive, not one of those guys who is supportive as long as it doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t seek credit or demand evidence of success that I don’t have. And while my career was cut short, between us, we have a little padding financially that allows me to write full time; he doesn’t begrudge me any of it.

Writing has given me a way out of self-pity. A way to look past the insult of being ignored because of my age. A way to grasp at life my own way instead of feeling like I haven’t any control or agency.

I sometimes feel guilty – I don’t have to make a living this way. I don’t have to write life advice or listicles or make up crazy shit to get clicks. Maybe fifteen people will read this, and that’s okay with me. I’d love to have more, sure, but I don’t experience any sense of failure or frustration because of it.

The idea of a calendar – experiencing a milestone year – it’s nice to have. I still don’t do resolutions, but I have goals. I want to finish my books and put them in people’s hands; I want to enter more short story contests and take more courses and participate in conferences and writers’ groups. I’m tempted to set deadlines—it’s so deeply ingrained—but I won’t punish myself if I don’t make it because I’m not going to mark my life that way. Going forward, I plan to enjoy the success of yesterday and focus on the excitement of tomorrow.

Happy New Year.