On the wall of my office, I have a framed copy of the cover for Flying magazine’s October 2000 issue. Unlike most of the magazine’s covers, which feature an airplane of some kind, this one featured … me. Granted, there is an airplane, or at least part of one, in the image. But I’m the main attraction. I’m sitting on the wing of a beautiful Staggerwing Beech biplane, in shorts and a blue, sleeveless, button-down shirt, gazing off into the sunset, under the headline “Oshkosh Dreams.”
If that cover doesn’t sound familiar to anyone, it’s because it never ran. The art director always produced two cover layouts, one of which got chosen for the publication run. So I have the only copy of that cover. It’s part of why I like it, and why it’s up on my wall. I’m a cover girl, but only within the confines of my own home.
More to the point, however, that image of my youthful, tanned self was taken more than 18 years ago. I still see myself, when I look at it. But I’m also not that particular woman anymore. So much has happened; so much has changed. That is, incidentally, as it should be. But it also emphasizes a really important point about being ourselves.
I found myself thinking of that cover image this past weekend, after reading two separate but oddly related bits of writing. The first was the book Fly Girls, which related not just the stories, but also the personal thoughts, conversations, and reflections of several well-known pioneering women pilots in the 1920s and 30s. The second was a book review for The Impossible Climb—a book by rock climber Mark Synnott that incorporates, among other tales, the story of Alex Honnold’s free solo climb of Yosemite’s El Capitan (subject of the recent film Free Solo.)
Flying and rock climbing are similar in many ways: they take skill, entail significant risk (especially at a competitive level), and are often undertaken as solo endeavors. They’re also easy metaphors for following one’s own path, destiny, and passion; for insisting on being one’s truest and best self, in all its risk, reward, and glory. So what struck me about both accounts was how they illuminated not only the heights of adventurous reward, but also the challenges that ensue when people who have found and defined themselves by that youthful, boundless energy, achievement, fame and possibility hit middle age and beyond.
The harsh reality, for women like Amelia Earhart, Louise Thaden, Ruth Nichols and the other energetic young women glamorized in aviation’s golden days, was that part of their appeal was their youth and novelty status. In aviation’s early days, women pilots were extraordinarily rare, and therefore particularly headline-generating. The 1920s and 30s were also a unique moment in time; the dawn of a new, tantalizing, and adventurous frontier. But when the record-setting heyday of the 1920s and 30s gave way to World War II and the era of more stable, commercial aviation that followed, opportunities for women in the everyday ranks of professional pilots fell to somewhere between limited and non-existent. So the headline girls of the 1930s found themselves struggling to get jobs and make ends meet.
According to the book’s author and source material, several of them also struggled to come to terms with life without the adrenaline rush, headlines, and public identity they’d had in their competitive flying days. Even Louise Thaden, who made a conscious decision to retire from competitive flying in order to spend more time the young children she’d left at home during her adventures, still had difficulty adapting to that smaller identity and life. Several of the women battled depression in their 50s; two attempted suicide, and one succeeded.
The reviewer of The Impossible Climb—an outdoor adventurer in his own right—makes a similar observation about the book’s author, Mark Synnott, and what Synnott reveals in the way he writes about the younger, and now more famous, Alex Honnold. “Synnott’s descriptions of Honnold seem saturated with longing and insecurity,” the reviewer observed. “Synnott wants what Honnold has: acclaim, sex, relative youth, apparent fearlessness, long lines for autographs at public events…. If Honnold is peaking as an athlete, it means that Synnott’s time of climbing glory, like those of so many before him, is finally coming to an end.”
The books are both reminders of the challenges all of us face in gracefully adapting to the passage of time, as well as cautionary tales about the perils of identifying ourselves too much with a fixed vision of who we are.
The idea of being “ourselves” can make it sound as if there’s one, clear, fixed “self” that we simply need to find and be. But that’s not at all how it works. Who we are changes over time. We take on new roles and discover new aspects of life and ourselves. Our tastes and priorities change. Our passions for some activities may fade, while other visions or interests become more compelling. Even our core beliefs may shift, as we gain experience, make mistakes, and (hopefully) glimpse new perspectives or wisdom. But here’s the rub. That process of evolution also requires us to let go of who we used to be. And that’s not always easy.
Most of us have moments of nostalgia for our younger selves at one time or another. But letting go of what’s past can be particularly challenging for people whose identities and careers were built around the kind of physical energy and ability, looks, or other features more available to the young. There comes a point when the body—or the commercial appeal of that body—simply ages out. By age 40 or 50, just as researchers, business leaders, and many other professionals are hitting their prime, those who have defined themselves by their physical activities or youthful achievements, daring or appeal are often already past it. So they often find themselves struggling for identity at a time when many of their peers are still chugging happily along.
But the truth is, we all have to learn how to cope with change and unexpected challenges at some point or another. Life isn’t a game we figure out by the age of 30, and then simply enjoy after that. It’s a wizard’s duel. Just as we master one kind of challenge—say, where we want to put our energy in our 20s—the opponent changes. And the challenges life throws us in our 30s, and 40s, let alone our 50s and beyond, are usually more complex. And that requires us to evolve and mature, as well. Not only to meet those challenges, but also because of them.
Beyond that, being engaged and alive—an important prerequisite for being happy—requires living enthusiastically in the present. And to do that requires letting go of not only past selves, but also set ideas of who we need to be, and how we need life to go. We can all commit to maintaining certain core traits or attitudes we value over time: integrity, compassion, authenticity, an appreciation of beauty, or even curiosity about life and the world. But at the same time, we have to master the art of embracing not only unexpected course deviations, but a succession of activities, priorities, and versions of ourselves, without getting overly attached, or linking our identity too closely, to any particular one.
That’s easier said than done. But those who manage it best, I’ve observed, tend to be people who have a fairly broad and flexible view of themselves. They may love and embrace whatever they’re doing at a particular time in their lives, but they don’t define themselves by it. Consciously or unconsciously, they see themselves, instead, as explorers on a lifelong journey. Exploring adventure. Exploring being single and untethered. Exploring parenthood. Exploring the world, and re-evaluating what they believe based on what they discover. Exploring what intrigues or resonates with them, who they are now, and who they might still become.
One of first women I interviewed for my book about a woman’s authentic voice, for example, was a highly regarded head of a prominent girls school. She was passionate, insightful, and completely enthusiastic about both her job and her 30-year marriage. When I talked to her three years later, however, she’d retired and her husband had died, taking away two of her main roles and anchor points in life. She took a year to regroup. But I recently got a note from her saying she was headed to Somaliland, because there was this school there that was doing impressive work. She was going to investigate, but she thought she might stay and work there for a while. She’d never been to Africa. But at the age of 62, without the career track and marriage that had helped define her past life, she was going to explore a new part of the world and, potentially, a new version of her self. And her excitement, even in that short email, was palpable.
It’s easy to get nostalgic. But I don’t just keep that cover of Flying up on my wall just to remind myself of a great time that once was. I keep it there because every time I look at it, I remember what I was actually thinking when that photo was taken. I was savoring the beauty of where I was, and thinking about what adventures I wanted to explore next. And that explorer’s enthusiasm and spirit is a part of myself I very much want to hold onto, no matter how many other things change.
