Goodbye (Not Really)
When denial stops working, damn it. And my secret salad topping.
"All life is a series of problems which we must try and solve, first one and then the next and then the next, until at last we die."
- The Dowager Grantham, Downton Abbey
I'm a word nerd, and I love dictionaries and definitions, so let's get a couple of definitions that will show up here often out of the way.
First up: vibrancy. The name of my business.
The name of my project aka journey aka life.
One of my all-time favorite words because it sounds bouncy and energetic, which in my mind makes it an onomatopoeia (as in, a word that sounds just like the thing it's describing - also one of the greatest words of all time).
Is it technically onomatopoeic? Probably not, not in the way slap or zipper or gurgle are, but it sound pizzazz-y and that's what we're going for here, right?
So, let's start with the dictionary definition of vibrancy, which is the state of being full of energy or life. Yes please.
It also means a striking brightness of color. Love.
And also a strength and resonance of sound. More love.
I myself, in my business, define vibrancy as the result of a nourished body + healthy mindset.
That's a formula, of sorts, and it's why I share recipes and teach cooking as well as write this newsletter and offer coaching (and soon courses and a podcast too).
I've always been pretty good at the nourished body thing. I love to cook (obviously), I love healthy food. I love to walk and lift weights and dance and move around. All good things.
The healthy mindset part has been a bigger learning curve for me. I shared in my last newsletter that I've historically been a bad griever. I had some experiences early in my life that made me extremely afraid of grief, sadness, and goodbyes and so I created all sorts of ways to just skip over those feelings as often as I could.
I don't need to tell you that that strategy doesn't work very well.
It's also absolutely terrible for your health.
And so! For the last 12 years or so, I've been slowly learning how to let go, say proper goodbyes, face fear head on, and process grief in healthier and more active ways (I shared last time several processes that have helped me along the way).
I'm a GIANT Downton Abbey fan, particularly of the Dowager Grantham, and I repeat the above quote - offered to her grieving granddaughter, LOL - to myself often. It helps me when I feel attacked by life.
Life is just a series of problems to solve. And then we die.
And I would add this:
Life is just a series of goodbyes. And then we die.
Which leads me to my second definition, which is of grief itself.
The dictionary says that grief is, deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone's death.
I tend to think of grief as the feeling experienced when saying goodbye. Any goodbye. Death = big grief. Leaving a job = medium grief. An amazing vacation ending = small grief.
I'm of course not at all likening death to leaving a dinner party (unless we're speaking metaphorically) but if you recognize how many times in a day we all say goodbye, to projects, loved ones, a great book, a great meal, a great bath...
...it makes you realize that embracing - instead of dreading - goodbyes might be a good way to live.
A vibrant way, even.
This is not a new concept, obviously. Learning to let go to make room for what's next is a central tenet in most forms of spirituality. I knew this, I saved quotes about it, I read books about it.
But I didn't fully understand that my dread of endings - even endings as small as wrapping up a hot shower - was stealing my joy.
That is, until my son left for college.
I'd limped along and even thrived through - in spite of myself - several major endings before he graduated. I'd been divorced but then remarried. I'd left one beloved home but loved the next one too. I'd ended one career but was finding exciting new work.
But I did it all with a constant sense that the other shoe was about to drop. I never fully relaxed into whatever success I was experiencing because I was so terrified of the ending that was surely coming and that I still hadn't recovered from.
I had zero ability to see that the goodbyes hadn't been tragic, they'd in fact led to the next right step, for everyone involved.
And so...I was bereft when my son left for college. I absolutely loved parenting him, more than I had ever loved anything in my life, and I didn't want to ever stop, not really.
I was also newly divorced, launching a business, diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, and living alone for the first time in my life.
It was a real life-defining moment. I was slammed with goodbyes and endings and I could see that my old limping along process was NOT working.
I could also see that I had a huge opportunity for a fresh start, in so many amazing ways, if I could bust out of my tired old mindset.
Thank goodness I realized that I needed help.
I found a great therapist. And I hired a coach. Both! I needed every bit of paradigm-shifting wisdom I could get my hands on.
I worked hard on breaking old subconscious patterns about how goodbye = failure and/or death. And I worked hard on establishing healthier conscious patterns like learning how to take good risks, let bad relationships (and hairstyles) go, and trust that good things were around the corner if I cleared some space for them.
I started to look back at my life through a new and more forgiving lens. I saw where endings had led to incredible new beginnings. I started to learn how to grieve.
My health improved so dramatically that it kind of blew me away.
If ever you have doubted the connection between emotional health and physical health, let me be your example. It's how I came to see that vibrancy could never be defined by food alone. It had to include a healthy mindset too.
Of course, I still struggle with goodbyes. As I've shared with you, my mom's death has taken me to unimagined levels of grief - but also new levels of love and beauty. I'm making my way through.
I suspect I'll always dread goodbyes and endings, even those I choose and need, but these days see the opportunity too. I want the new. I want to use my new skills.
I'm happy to share them with you in this project I call vibrancy.
If you'd like to work together on vibrancy = nourishment + healthy mindset, let me know. I would be honored to create a plan that works for you, together.
The assignment below is quick and powerful.
How are you at saying goodbye, even to small things? Do you lack trust that making space is a good thing? If so, where does that lack of trust come from? Can you create a list of times when saying goodbye led directly to something so much better showing up?
Your assignment is to ponder and answer those questions. Email me back if you come upon something juicy.
I'm sharing one of my best and most delicious salad tricks. It's crazy that I haven't shared it before and what reminded me is that I brought this kale salad - except with the topping below instead of breadcrumbs - to my friend Stephanie March's home earlier this week.
Do you subscribe to her incredible Substack newsletter Pickle? If not, you should! She's a brilliant, hilarious, and insightful writer.
She's also one of the wisest, funniest, and most quotable people I know. In fact, I literally just texted her this very moment and said, "Hey, can you send me a quote for my newsletter, just a sliver of wisdom, I'm writing about saying goodbye." Steph's mom, the inimitable Oma, died in 2023 as well, so we share not just similar names but we lost our moms a few months apart.
She sent the pic above and wrote back:
"Well you know that I believe the hard stuff is good, and the good stuff is hard, but my favorite realization is that sorrow is not an ending, it's actually the beginning of gratitude. ♥️ Oma taught me that."
Oh man. Without knowing it, she encapsulated exactly what I've been writing about: grief is an invitation to healing. Learning to let go makes room for vibrancy.
It's very fun being friends with writers.
So, back to my salad trick. I showed up with the kale salad. Our friend Lisa Rounds (also a writer/editor) showed up with bubbles. Steph ordered GF pizzas - of course one of them had pickles on it - and we ate the kale alongside the pizza for a detox/retox/balance sort of situation. Also: yum.
Both Steph and Lisa wanted to know what I put on the salad and I realized it's a topping that can make any salad taste amazing. The secret is in the texture - it's quite fine and really coats the lettuce/greens leaves so each bite has maximum flavor.
So here you - and they - go:
Amazing Salad Topping
Makes 1 cup
Note: can be stored in the fridge for up to 4 days.
1/2 cup toasted, salted pistachios (or pepitas for nut-free)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 small clove garlic, minced (use a fatter clove if you really love garlic but keep in mind it will get stronger as it sits)
Several grinds black pepper and/or pinch of chile flakes
Add all ingredients to bowl of a food processor and process until the texture of sand.
To use, add a few tablespoons to a salad before adding dressing. Then add the dressing and toss. Add more to taste.
Store in a glass jar or other airtight container.
In line with this week's topic - leaning into goodbye - I want to recommend another book that my friend Alison Arth gave to me when my mom had a heart attack last summer. (She also gave me You Better Be Lightning by Andrea Gibson, which I quoted from in my last newsletter.) Like Stephanie, Alison too has a marvelous newsletter (yes, another soulful writer!) and you can sign up for it here.
The book is called Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment, and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte.
One the hardest parts of caring for my mom was her denial that anything was wrong. It was very stressful and it also made me verrrrrry uncomfortably reckon with my own predilection for denial. I mean, how can you avoid saying necessary goodbyes without denying you need to do so?
At the height of my mom's struggles, I was in a real funk about her denial and my denial and feeling very cursed by denial in general when I picked up the book, sitting right next me, and it opened right to the word...Denial. (Love when that happens.)
Here's a taste of the magic:
Denial is deeply underestimated as a state of being. Denial is an ever-present and even splendid thing when seen in the light of its merciful and elemental powers to cradle and hold an identity until it is ready to move on. Faced with the depth of loss and disappearance in the average life, a measure of denial is creative, necessary, and self-compassionate: children are not meant to know they are one day to die and older adults are not meant to tell them. Refusing to face what we are not yet ripe and ready to face can help us to live through the more than enough difficulties of the present.
Woof. That, my friend, is grace. It was exactly what I needed to read in that moment, that last line in particular. I felt so much compassion for my mom. I felt so much compassion for myself. There's more to the chapter, and it's equally as beautiful, but I'll stop here and just say that if you ever get in super sticky bad moods and aren't good at shifting gears, I offer you this book. It's full of gear-shifting magic.
I also offer you this quote from Alison herself. I texted her too, just like I texted Stephanie, and she wrote right back away, and it couldn't make me happier to share with you the insight and encouragement my friends offer to me:
“I think there is immense pain and immense beauty in the fact that everything is temporary. Our culture puts so much emphasis on ‘forever’ as the highest measure of success. I don’t buy it. When I’m willing to fully face the beauty and the pain that everything, eventually, must come to an end, I find it easier to release attachment to a particular relationship, friendship, business, job or pair of shoes lasting a lifetime and welcome my own discernment and curiosity. It’s far more painful to write the ending of a story 10 chapters too late than it is to gather the courage to end it when the wisest, most loving part of you recognizes it’s time to close the book.”
How amazing is this? You are witnessing in real time the kismet of women on the same but different paths wrestling with the same but different griefs and endings. Alison is many years head of my own awakening and was probably born offering such helpful advice. She and Stephanie are both old souls.
I love old souls.
I hope you enjoy both of their newsletters and writings.
In closing, I leave you with a favorite recipe from my blog, Fresh Tart. If you've been wanting to eat more fish, but don't feel confident in your fish cooking skills, then this Clam, Halibut & Kale Chowder is the way to go. Gently simmering fish in broth is foolproof - it ends up tender and so delicious. Bacon and potatoes make everything taste amazing.
To add a touch of spring, a garnish of dill would be lovely. If you like, sub in salmon for the halibut.
Click for recipe
Enjoy! Goodbye! (But not in a sad way...)
xoxo Stephanie
For more midlife badassery, healthy reflection, delicious recipes, and tips from powerful friends, I would so appreciate your support and to share if you’re enjoying what you read.