Sarala Life — Life in Chapters: Careers, Canines, Cabernet & Courage

On Saturday, someone asked me what I was thinking about.

“My life,” I replied.

Their response was almost immediate: “What—everything that it isn’t what you thought it would be?”

It was the kind of comment that was perhaps a little too perceptive for a Saturday.

I paused before answering.

“Well, I’m not dying right this minute, so there is still a lot of life to be had.”

I laughed when I said it, but I also meant it.

My life is not everything I thought it would be. There are parts I imagined differently, parts I expected to have figured out by now and parts that still feel strangely unresolved. But I am also only 40. This moment—however uncertain, lonely or uncomfortable it may feel—is not the final verdict on my life.

That is what I am trying to remember this week.

I feel unusually vulnerable. Part of it is the luteal phase, when the thoughts I can normally manage seem to arrive without volume control. Part of it is that I have not been sleeping well, and an exhausted mind has a remarkable ability to turn every concern into a crisis.

It is not that the feelings are invented. I dislike when women’s emotions are dismissed as “just hormones,” as though what rises to the surface during that time has no meaning. Sometimes the feelings are very real. They are simply louder, less filtered and more insistent.

This week, mine have quite a lot to say.

I am preparing to travel to Washington to speak at the Breakthrough to the Bank Brunch. I have been thinking about my speech, what I will wear, how I will present myself and, beneath all of that, whether I will be meaningful.

Not merely good. Not polished. Not impressive.

Meaningful.

I want something I say to stay with someone after the brunch is over. I want the difficult parts of my own story to become useful to another woman. I want the journey—the titles, the losses, the reinvention and the rebuilding—to mean something beyond me.

That is a great deal of expectation to place upon a few minutes at a microphone.

Perhaps the pressure I feel is not really about remembering every word. Perhaps it is about wanting reassurance that this chapter I am building is real. That the opportunities are leading somewhere. That I am not simply travelling, speaking and sharing while remaining uncertain about how all the pieces will eventually come together.

There is an odd vulnerability in preparing to stand before a room and speak about power while quietly questioning parts of your own life.

But perhaps that is where the meaning comes from.

I am not speaking because I have conquered every struggle. I am speaking because I know what it is to continue while the story is still untidy.

The untidiness extends beyond work.

I have also been thinking about what it means to feel single when you are not actually single.

It is a difficult feeling to explain because it is not necessarily about being physically alone. It is about feeling alone in the responsibility for creating a life. It is having someone beside you but sometimes still feeling as though you are the only one thinking ahead, making the plans, initiating the conversations or carrying the emotional weight.

Sometimes what you miss is not companionship in the literal sense. It is the feeling of being considered.

Of someone else noticing what needs attention.

Of not always having to explain why something matters before it is treated as though it matters.

There can be love in a relationship and still be loneliness inside it. Admitting that does not automatically negate the love or mean the relationship is ending. It simply acknowledges that partnership is more than presence. It is participation.

Perhaps the luteal phase makes that loneliness harder to ignore. Perhaps poor sleep makes it feel heavier. But neither of those things means it is unworthy of examination.

Then, in the middle of contemplating my purpose, my marriage, my career and the entire trajectory of my life, one of the doggies needs something.

Naturally.

George and Isabella do not care that I am having an existential crisis. There is food to be prepared, a door to be opened, medication or routines to be remembered and attention to be provided—often at precisely the moment when I have run out of patience.

I love them deeply. Still, I sometimes become frustrated while looking after them.

That frustration is usually followed by guilt.

They are getting older. They trust me. They depend on me. I know that one day I will miss even the moments that currently test me. Knowing that, however, does not magically make me endlessly patient.

Love does not prevent exhaustion.

Caring for someone—whether a person or an animal—does not mean loving every task involved in their care. Sometimes devotion looks tender. Sometimes it looks like doing what needs to be done while tired and slightly irritated.

I am trying to stop interpreting every impatient moment as evidence that I am unkind. Perhaps it is simply evidence that I need more rest, more help or five uninterrupted minutes in which no living creature asks anything of me.

This feels like an appropriate moment to talk about wine.

It has been a while.

For this week, I am recommending a Beaujolais-Villages: a light, fruit-forward French red, usually filled with cherry and raspberry flavours and best served slightly chilled.

It is not a wine that requires you to sit upright and discuss tannins with authority. It does not need a special occasion or an elaborate meal. It is the kind of wine you can pour after feeding the dogs, removing your bra and deciding that none of your major life questions need to be answered before bedtime.

Put the bottle in the refrigerator for about 20 or 30 minutes before opening it. Not long enough to make it icy—just enough to make it bright and refreshing.

Think of it as a red wine that understands we are going through enough.

Maybe I need to approach this week in the same way: with a little less heaviness.

Washington does not have to prove that my new life is working. One speech does not have to justify the entire journey. One lonely season does not define a marriage. One impatient moment does not define how well I love my dogs. One hormonally and emotionally difficult week does not mean everything is falling apart.

The truth is that my life is not what I thought it would be.

But perhaps no honest life is.

The plans we make when we are younger rarely account for who we will become, what we will lose, what we will outgrow or how many times we may need to begin again. We imagine that by a certain age our careers will be secure, our relationships will feel settled and our sense of self will no longer be under review.

Then life continues being life.

At 40, I am not finished. I am not out of time. I am not required to treat today’s reality as the permanent shape of my future.

There are rooms I have not yet entered, work I have not yet created and people who have not yet heard what I have to say. There are places I have not visited, pleasures I have not discovered and versions of myself I have not yet met.

My life may not be everything I thought it would be.

But I am not dying right this minute.

So there is still a lot of life to be had.

And for now, that is enough reason to keep going—and perhaps to open the wine.