The version of success you don't learn in your 30s

Lessons from hanging with my grandma

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

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The thing is: we all know we’ll get older.

We all know that we will eventually die.

But do we really know know it?

I don’t think so.

I think we know conceptually, but in practice it feels like it’s going to happen somewhere too far away in the future, maybe even in another life.

But lately, I’d say in the last year, the idea that one day maybe not to far from now I will certainly be an elderly person has felt much closer to the reality.

Sometimes, the thought of it makes me uncomfortable, but it has also helped me see life in a more positive light.

It has pushed me to reflect on what makes life meaningful at these later stages of life. I’m starting to understand that it’s not about youth or achievement, but about love and relationships.

Showing Lisbon to my Grandma (You can tell her personality by her hair 🤭)

What really matters when we get older?

Last Tuesday, I was ironing in my living room while my grandma was sitting on the sofa sewing some of my clothes that needed to be fixed but I was lazy enough to wear them anyway the way they were.

We spent most of the time in silence.

At times, she made sporadic comments bragging about how her sewing was perfect, and I’d agreed with her in response, making sure she knew how awesome she is.

Even though we didn’t speak much, from time to time I would look at her and my heart would fill with joy for this moment.

“I’m so grateful for this” I thought a few times.

My mom was in the next room trying some of my clothes I didn’t wear anymore, choosing which ones she wanted to take back with her to Brazil.

My grandma is 89 years old, but don’t let yourself be fooled by her age - she is a vivid, sharp woman, and has impeccable skin.

She is visiting me in Portugal for the first time since I moved here 7 years ago. My grandpa died just a year and a half ago, at the age of 97, and they had been together in total for 70 years.

It’s needless to say how hard it has been for her this time without him, but I also realized how having her family around and grandchildren to visit in different cities, even if once or twice a year, is what gives her meaning and joy at this stage of her life.

I call her every Sunday, and we speak for about 20min. She spends the entire week telling others about the call we had, and looking forward to the next Sunday call, even though we mostly talk about the same things every time.

The thing is, it’s not about what we discuss, it’s about feeling the other person present, connected, and knowing that you’re remembered. Being loved.

I think everything we do in life is about feeling loved - even the things we think there’s nothing to do with it.

“I knew you’d call, you always call”, she says every time when she picks up the phone.

Having her over for these last weeks, has made me think: How do I want to see myself when I’m 90?

Family Is Hard — and Worth It

What I’ve been recognizing for now is that at the end of the day what really fills my heart with joy is the connection I form with people, and there’s no connection like the one’s we form with our family.

In full transparency, I’m not here to romanticize the ideal of family, and say how perfect and loving, and rainbows and unicorns, families are.

Family is really hard.

My grandma is a woman of strong personality, and if I had to be with her everyday of the year I probably would complain about her often.

But since I’m far away, when I’m close to her I don’t care at all about the things that would annoy me, and I just focus on her qualities and how grateful I am for spending time with her.

Also, if you have been reading along since the beginning of this newsletter, you’d known how much I had to work through a collection of traumas with small “t”s I carried from childhood.

Which means that when I was younger my relationship with my mom was very conflicting and I spent probably around a total of 10 years in therapy to make sense of it all.

I rode the entire rollercoaster of emotions along the years in relation to my parents. And only in the last years, after I started taking real responsibility for myself, I was able to heal more and more, accept them as who they are, and be grateful for everything they offered me - even if in imperfect ways.

To have love and connection, we need to take responsibility for ourselves.

Watching my grandma light up when I call her every Sunday made me realize that love isn't just showing up for others, it’s also showing up for ourselves, so we can relate with openness instead of defense.

I think that part of developing a good relationship within our families is our ability to take responsibility for ourselves, which implies in creating boundaries when needed.

One of the things I understand now that created so much conflict in the relationship I had with my mom, is because even though I was an adult, I was still expecting her to show up for me in ways she couldn’t.

It was only when I started showing up for myself as I needed, that I could release the expectations I had on her, and be accepting of how she is, with her gifts and limitations.

It also means that I became more protective of myself, and I had to communicate limits in our relationship when something was triggering for me.

I’ve noticing that the more I show up for myself, the better I can relate with others from a place of compassion instead of judgement like I used to do in the past.

I feel lucky that I’m at this place that I can embrace my family with so much love and compassion for their imperfections, knowing that I’m also imperfect.

And what helped to do so was developing my abilities to communicate boundaries and be firm with them (not easy, very necessary, and a work of a lifetime for a recovering people pleaser like me).

Taking responsibility for myself also means recognizing that I’m an adult, and that they owe me nothing. That I’m deeply grateful for all I received, especially my life, and all the love they gave me in all the way they could and knew how to.

And that whatever I get from them now, I receive it as a gift. Their time, their love, their support. I recognize that I’m only able to live the life I love right now because I always knew that no matter what happened I would always have my family to support me.

At this moment of my life, I think that knowing who I am, while having an imperfect family that supports and loves me, is the best thing in the world.

Research shows that love is what keep us alive

I remember when I was reading Man search for Meaning by Viktor Franklin, who was an Austrian psychiatrist and holocaust survivor. He described the experience as being a living hell — one which many people chose to end their own lives so they could free themselves from all sorts of psychological and physical pain.

In very simplified terms, he points out in the book that, that the difference between people who endured such a living hell and unthinkable pain, and the people who didn’t, was that the first group was moved by a sense of meaning and purpose in life.

For many of them, this came from their families and loved ones, from whom they were separated when taken away. Because of those connections, they felt that they had to survive all of that so that they could eventually reunite with them, and be there for them.

From other books and stories, I noticed this to be the same motivation for people who endured hell and survived wars moved by their families and lovers.

And, as always, I’m curious to know if there’s foundation to my observations, so I did a quick research and found that..

a Harvard study, the longest-running one from 1938, found that elderly people who have strong social connections, especially with family, tend to live longer and have better health outcomes. And that close relationships, more than money, fame, or work success, is what keep people happy and healthy as they age.

Not only that, an analysis of 148 studies made by Holt-Lunstad et al. (2010) on the topic concluded that strong social relationships increase the likelihood of survival by 50%!!

What success looks like for me when I’m older

Reflecting on all this, I’ve come to see how unique and irreplaceable the love of a family can be. It’s knowing there are people in the world who love you so deeply, they would step into your shoes without hesitation.

For my parents and grandma, the most joyful moment of their week is when I call to speak for 20 minutes, often just to talk about the same things over and over again.

When you’re young, everything feels urgent — so many goals to chase, things to build, lives to live. But watching my grandma this past year, I’ve realized that when I’m at her age, the only thing that will truly matter is the people still sitting beside me. The people who know me, who remember me, and who still call.

And I don’t want to wait until I’m old to appreciate that.

Someday, if I’m lucky enough to reach 90, I hope there’s someone I love waiting to hear my voice—and that I’ll get to say:

“I knew you’d call, you always do.”

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These are my reflections for the week. Curious to know if you can relate :)

With Love,

Nat