September 2026: What Is Mine to Carry?
Updated: 1 day ago
How do I know what is mine to carry, and what belongs beyond my control?
September brought my work out of the private space where it had mostly lived. 50 Things at 50 was released, and I began hearing how other people received it.
At the same time, I was facing something much closer to home: the history between my mother and me.
Those experiences looked different, but they kept returning me to the same question. What is mine to carry, and what must I release?
I found no neat answer. I found moments that asked me to remain present with the past, accept an uncomfortable first attempt, and leave room for my story to reach someone in a way I could not plan.
When the Past Is Not the Only Story
For years, my mother and I were estranged. We did not talk, and we did not have a healthy relationship.
I believed she did not care about me. When that is the story you have carried for a long time, it can become the first thing you see whenever you look back. The hurt is real, and pretending otherwise does not make it smaller.
I started thinking about our history as a buried hatchet with a traffic cone placed over it.
The cone did not make the hatchet disappear or suggest that what happened did not matter. It marked the place so I could stop stumbling over it and stop digging it up every time I tried to understand the relationship.
I could acknowledge the hurt without making it the only subject we were allowed to have.
My mother and I began making room for other things we both enjoyed. That gave us a chance to create good memories and give each other another opportunity at something meaningful.
Those moments did not erase the years before. They meant those years no longer had to be the only material we had to work with.
Reconciliation is not a switch, and a new memory does not settle every old question. What changed was that we could be present with something besides the injury.
I could bring my part honestly and allow the next moment to become something we made together instead of asking the past to decide in advance what was possible.
Learning From My First Radio Interview
Asia Tabb, host and producer of WITF’s The Spark, welcomed me for my first radio interview about 50 Things at 50.
I wanted to be prepared and articulate. I was nervous, and I did not feel that I had shown up as well as I wanted.
Near the end, my screen went black and I lost the Zoom connection. When I rejoined, audio feedback made it difficult to continue. I emailed afterward to apologize, convinced that I had made a mess of the opportunity.
Asia and the WITF team had already captured enough material to complete the interview.
When I listened to the finished segment, I heard something better than the performance I had been replaying in my mind. I heard the thoughtful conversation Asia had guided about the book, Lancaster County, estrangement, forgiveness, accountability, and rebuilding a life when things do not go according to plan.
The technical ending was real, but it was not the entire conversation.
Asia gave the story room to become more than a list of adventures. She helped bring forward the deeper reasons I wrote the book and introduced that story to listeners across Central Pennsylvania.
The first version of the story I told myself was a verdict. I had not done well, so perhaps I was not ready for this.
A more accurate version was narrower. I had completed my first radio interview, experienced a difficult ending, and learned from it. The finished conversation still had value.
One uncomfortable moment did not get to speak for the entire experience.
Chuck Waters talks with Asia Tabb on WITF’s The Spark.
When a Reader Shows You What the Book Meant
A few weeks later, Dr. Janet Steinkamp and I had a conversation that lasted nearly two hours.
She had purchased a physical copy of 50 Things at 50 and marked it with a couple dozen tabs in three colors. She told me that parts near the beginning had made her cry. She called the book a gift.
Dr. Janet gave the book the kind of careful attention every writer hopes a reader will bring to the work. She discussed specific ideas, shared what had affected her, and helped me understand how the story could speak to someone beyond my own experience.
I had sent the book into the world, but I could not know who would stop with it, which pages they would mark, or what they would feel.
Hearing Dr. Janet describe her response gave me a concrete answer to a question I had carried since publication. The work had reached a real person.
Her work focuses on communication, boundaries, accountability, and reconnection that remains voluntary. Those questions are close to the heart of 50 Things at 50: how to live with an unresolved relationship, continue growing, and leave room for repair without demanding reconciliation.
That first conversation led to a recorded podcast interview that is scheduled to air on November 1.
Dr. Janet’s thoughtful reading, encouragement, and willingness to share the book with her audience have meant a great deal to me. Her work gives people living with estrangement a place to consider their relationships with honesty, compassion, and respect for everyone involved.
Her response did not mean that every reader would experience the book the same way. It did not turn the book into a measure of my worth.
It meant that one reader had encountered something meaningful in its pages. I could receive that without claiming more than she had given me.
Sometimes the meaningful part of sharing a story is accepting that I cannot control the response. I can listen carefully when someone chooses to offer one.
Other September Moments
September also brought an opportunity to share part of my thinking beyond the book. On September 9, Tiny Buddha published my essay, “Why We Keep Accepting the Same Painful Relationship Patterns.” It explores how old beliefs can shape the relationships we accept and how we can begin changing our part without trying to control someone else.
Neda and I also rode our Onewheels along River Street in Savannah. We saw dolphins moving through the river and later watched the harvest moon rise.
I was still carrying questions about work, relationships, and what came next. The evening did not answer those questions or make them disappear.
It allowed me to be present with the life we were sharing.
Joy did not have to erase difficulty for the moment to matter.
What September Left With Me
These moments did not tie September up neatly.
They showed me several limits I keep encountering. I cannot change the history my mother and I share. I cannot make every interview unfold perfectly. I cannot decide what another person will find in my book.
I can take responsibility for my part. I can keep showing up after an uncomfortable first attempt. I can pay attention when someone tells me that the work reached them.
The past matters, but it does not have to be the only thing I bring into a relationship.
A rough moment can teach me without defining me.
When I offer a story honestly, I can leave room for another person to meet it in their own way.
Could you and someone you care about create one new memory together, even with the old hurt still there?
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