Tag: writing

Becoming

Kristine Binder

There is a stage of life that no one really prepares you for, and lately I have realized that I am standing right in the middle of it.
We spend so much of our lives planning the obvious milestones. College. Careers. Marriage. Babies. Houses. Retirement accounts. The whole thing gets mapped out like a timeline we are supposed to follow. There are books, podcasts, experts, and entire industries devoted to helping people navigate those stages. But this stage? The one where the roles that once defined your life quietly shift or even disappear? That part seems to get skipped entirely.
And yet here I am.
For years I was the director of my children’s lives. I scheduled things, organized things, advised on things, and occasionally insisted on things. Now I have moved into a role that no one warned me about: audience member. I am in the stands cheering them on as they build their own lives, trying very hard not to yell unsolicited advice from the sidelines like a slightly overenthusiastic sports/stage mom clapping as loud as I possibly can at every chance I get. It is a beautiful transition, but it is still a transition.
At the same time, another role in my life quietly ended. For the past few years I was a caretaker for my parents, and when they passed away that responsibility ended in a way that left a space I had never really anticipated. When you have been responsible for others for so long, it is a strange realization to wake up one day and understand that the person you are now responsible for caring for is… you.
Caretaker of myself.
That is a role I never really planned for, and it turns out there is no instruction manual for it. No one sits you down and says, “Here’s what happens when your children are grown, your parents are gone, and you suddenly have to figure out who you are outside of the roles that filled your life for decades.”
Maybe that is why this season feels a little unsteady. Not wrong. Not sad or happy all the time. Just unfamiliar. Although, to be fair, the unsteady feeling could also be my joints reminding me that I am sixty. It is hard to say which is which some days.
Sixty is an interesting number because it sounds enormous when you say it out loud, yet somehow my brain did not get the memo. In my head I feel much younger than that. My body occasionally disagrees, but overall it is still cooperating well enough. There are a few more aches than there used to be, but nothing a little stretching, movement, and mild denial cannot handle.
And despite the uncertainty, life actually feels pretty full. I pay my own bills. I make my own decisions. If I want cheese and crackers for dinner, I have cheese and crackers for dinner and no one questions my life choices. If I want to stay up late reading, writing, or going down a rabbit hole of ideas for something new I want to build, I do that too. Some nights the house is quiet and peaceful, and other nights I am talking to the dog like he is a full participant in the conversation, which, based on the look he gives me, he clearly believes he is helping with the decision making process.
There is a certain freedom that comes with running your own life. I decide how I spend my time. I decide where my energy goes. If I want to sign up for something new, start a project, change direction, or sit with a cup of coffee and think about life for an hour, I can. There is no committee meeting required to approve the plan. There is also something deeply satisfying about realizing that the life around me is one I built myself over time, piece by piece.
And yes, I still sleep diagonally across the bed when I feel like it… unless the dog has claimed most of the mattress, which happens more often than I care to admit.
People sometimes assume that at this stage a woman must be looking for a partner, as though being single automatically means something is missing. As if there is a box on the life checklist that still needs to be filled in. But the truth is that I am perfectly content with my life as it is. I have built a life that feels full, meaningful, and mine.
If a partner ever enters the picture, they will need to be a one hundred percent value add to my life. Not a fixer-upper project. Not someone who needs to be managed, motivated, or mothered. I am long past the stage of my life where I am interested in taking on another full-time emotional renovation project. At this point, anyone who joins my life should arrive with their own life already intact.
Someone who brings joy, laughter, and partnership to the table. Someone who makes the good parts of life even better, not someone who complicates the peace I have worked hard to create. Otherwise, I am quite happy running my own life, making my own decisions, and yes… sleeping diagonally across the bed.
What I do find myself wondering about, though, is how many other women are standing in this same space.
How many of us are just a bit past the midpoint of life and realizing that there is still so much living left to do, while also recognizing that the structure of our lives has shifted in ways we never really planned for? We are no longer raising small children. Many of us are navigating the loss of parents or other loved ones. The roles that once defined us are evolving, and we are discovering who we are when we are no longer primarily responsible for everyone else.
The loss of my parents is still very raw, and grief has a way of rearranging the furniture in your life whether you are ready for it or not. Some days I feel strong and clear about what comes next, and other days I feel like I am simply doing my best to put one thoughtful foot in front of the other. But somewhere inside all of that is the quiet understanding that this is now my time to discover what my life looks like in this new space.
It is a space that many women never really get the chance to explore. Sometimes that is because they have a partner whose life direction becomes intertwined with their own. Sometimes it is because life moves so quickly that there is never time to stop and ask, What do I want now? And sometimes, if we are honest, it is simply fear. Fear of stepping outside the roles we have known for decades. Fear of the unknown. Fear of standing in a place where there is no clear guidebook.
Because there really isn’t one.
This era of life does not come with instructions. There is no neatly packaged plan for what to do when your children are grown, your parents are gone, and you suddenly realize that the next chapter of your life is largely yours to design.
That realization is both terrifying and incredibly liberating.
So for now, I am doing what I have always done when life feels uncertain. I am moving forward, learning as I go, and paying attention to what feels meaningful. I am allowing myself the space to grieve, the space to grow, and the space to imagine what this next era might hold.
And I suspect I am not the only woman standing in this place.
Which is why I find myself thinking more and more about community. About women walking alongside one another through this stage of life instead of quietly trying to figure it all out alone. Women who are still very much in their prime, still curious, still capable, still full of life, but also honest about the fact that this chapter comes with questions.
Maybe together we can help create the path that none of us were given. We can support one another as we figure out what this next era looks like, share what we are learning along the way, and build something that not only helps us move forward but also creates space for the women who will come after us.
Because while there may not be a guidebook for this part of life, there is something powerful about realizing that we have the ability to write it ourselves.
And for now, I will keep doing the one thing I know how to do.
Moving forward.
Because forward is a pace.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace

Character

Kristine Binder
People always show you who they are.

There are seasons in life when we are barely holding ourselves together. Grief, illness, loss, divorce, heartbreak…. those moments when simply getting through the day feels like an accomplishment. They are the most fragile seasons of our lives. And in those moments, something becomes very clear: people reveal exactly who they are.
Just because people process grief differently does not give anyone permission to be cruel. Cruelty during someone’s most vulnerable moment isn’t a misunderstanding or a mistake. It’s a choice. And that choice tells you everything you will ever need to know about a person.
We are often told to be kind because we never know what someone else is going through. That is good advice. Kindness matters. Compassion matters. In life we are also often encouraged to assume positive intent, to start from a place of believing that people mean well.
And I do believe in starting there.
But life also teaches you that there are moments when positive intent becomes impossible to assume. There are people who take advantage of kindness, who see someone grieving or struggling and instead of protecting that fragile moment, they exploit it. They take advantage of your diminished capacity, your vulnerability, your exhaustion, your heartbreak. Not because they misunderstood, but because they could.
There are some things in life that should be sacred. Untouchable. Off limits. Someone’s darkest season should be one of them. When a person is sick, grieving, broken, or simply trying to keep their head above water, that is when the people around them are supposed to step closer. That is when compassion should show up. That is when kindness matters most.
But sometimes the opposite happens.
Sometimes people see vulnerability and they don’t feel empathy…. they see opportunity. They see someone who is too exhausted to fight back, too overwhelmed to defend themselves, too heartbroken to protect themselves. And they take advantage of that moment. They say things they would never say if you were strong. They behave in ways they would never dare if you were standing firmly on your feet.
That is not simply poor character. That is the absence of humanity.
The wounds from that kind of cruelty run deep because they happen at the exact moment you needed support the most. You were already drowning, and instead of throwing you a lifeline, they pushed your head further under. You were already shattered, and instead of helping you gather the pieces, they stepped on them, crushing them even smaller.
I know this not just in theory, but in lived experience. I saw it during my divorce, and I have seen it again in other seasons of loss. Something about grief and hardship has a way of revealing people. When life cracks open and everything feels fragile, the masks fall away. In those moments, people show you exactly who they are.
And over time, you learn that people are not judged by a single sentence they say or one moment they regret. People are known by their patterns. By their behavior over and over again. By how they treat others when things are going well, and when everything is falling apart. By how they treat people when there is nothing to gain and no audience watching. And by how they behave when they do have something to gain. I have seen the worst of humanity in people who were once very close to me. The kind of cruelty that shocks you because you never imagined it could come from them. But I have also seen the absolute best in people, those who quietly step closer when life gets hard, who show compassion without needing credit, who protect others when they are at their weakest. They sit with you and, often saying nothing, help you feel safe.
In loss, people reveal themselves.
And that is how you learn who to trust. I am not a vengeful person, but I do believe in karma. Not the dramatic kind people talk about, but the quieter kind. I know that karma may simply be that some people have to live with the person they chose to be. They have to sit with the choices they made and the way they treated someone who was already hurting. And in the end, that may be consequence enough.
I know that through those seasons I stayed in my lane. I did the best I could with the strength and clarity I had at the time. When I made mistakes, I owned them. I apologized. I worked to correct them.
But cruelty? That is different.
Cruelty is intentional. And when someone chooses cruelty toward a person who is already wounded, it is not something you forget—not because you are holding onto anger, but because you learned something important.
People always show you who they are.
And if you are paying attention, those moments help you see more clearly. They show you who is safe, who is kind, who will stand beside you when life gets hard. In the end, those lessons don’t just protect your heart….
they guide you toward the people who truly deserve a place in your life.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace

Notice

Kristine Binder

Every year when Fat Tuesday rolls around, I decide I’m going to do Lent right. There’s always a brief window — usually while holding a paczki — where I become extremely optimistic about my future holiness. I am going to give up something that will make me a better person after 40 days is over…
I’ve given up soda (Dr. Pepper is my fave and still a treat!). I’ve given up chocolates and dessert. I’ve given up coffee (the Lord and I both know that one was never sustainable). I once gave up buying clothes and gave something away every day. I’ve tried the rosary. I’ve tried daily Bible reading. I’ve tried structure and discipline and holy intentions.
And some years it stuck. Most years it… didn’t. Turns out self-improvement and I have a complicated relationship.
Those who know me also know I’m not really a “church” or organized-religion person in the traditional sense. But my faith runs deep. My belief in God and Jesus is steady and personal, and I pray every day. The Memorare is one that is more like a mantra and has become the prayer I fall back on when I don’t have words of my own – especially on the days when my prayers sound less like poetry and more like, “Okay… now what?”
This year I’m not feeling any call to heroic deprivation. Honestly, I could use all the desserts…. eating my feelings has been my go-to lately, and at this point the desserts and I are in a committed relationship.
So this Lent I’m not giving up small pleasures in hopes that suffering will magically reorder my soul. This year I’m giving up the things that are actually stealing my peace.
I’m giving up pretending I am a person who can successfully give up something like food or shopping for 40 days. Growth starts with honesty. I’m giving up rehearsing old resentments….. the ones I polish and revisit like they’re part of my personality. The stories I tell myself about other people, and the even harsher ones I tell myself.
I’m giving up the voice in my head that still thinks I should be a past version of me if I just try hard enough. I am giving up the lies I have told myself for years about who and what I deserve. I’m giving up expecting immediate text responses from my kids (this may be the holiest sacrifice of all… and also the least successful). I’m giving up believing the internet is an accurate representation of the world. It isn’t. It’s an algorithm, not reality – and definitely not a spiritual director.
Mostly, I’m giving up control – the exhausting illusion that if I monitor everything closely enough, worry hard enough, and plan carefully enough, I can keep life neat, predictable, and according to my own plans. Life, as it turns out, has never once agreed to that arrangement, no matter how convincing my spreadsheets were.
So instead of subtraction or even addition, this year I’m choosing attention.
For over a year I posted every single week…… seven moments of joy from the previous week. One photo for each day. One small moment of beauty at a time. And then life got heavy. Grief, responsibility, noise, fear, logistics. Noticing got replaced with surviving…… and surviving doesn’t leave much room for wonder.
So I’m going back.
From Ash Wednesday forward, I’m keeping a daily practice of deliberately looking for what is still good. Each day I’ll share one small thing – a photo of something I find beautiful, a kind interaction with a stranger, a sentence someone said that mattered, or one honest gratitude from the day.
Nothing curated. Nothing inspirational or poster perfect. Just real evidence that goodness still exists right here, right now.
Because social media….. and honestly the world lately …. trains our brains to scan for danger. For outrage. For proof everything is broken. But God is rarely found in the shouting. God shows up in the ordinary. Jesus himself saw straight through the ugliness of humanity to the beautiful parts. He sat with the outcasts, forgave the mess, loved people anyway. I mean… the man literally died for us and for the sins of the world. That kind of love isn’t loud. It’s steady, present, and usually happening in small moments we almost miss because of the chaos around us.
Sunrise peaking through the buildings. Someone holding a door. A laugh you didn’t expect. The dog excitedly waiting for you to arrive home. The moment your mind finally goes quiet and you just smile…..usually when you weren’t even trying.
I’m not pretending life is easy. I’m not ignoring the steady stream of news. I am still grieving. I’m just refusing to miss beauty while pain and ugliness exist. Holiness, at least for me this year, might look less like discipline and more like paying attention.
This Lent I’m giving up the constant analysis, the doom-scrolling, the need to fix every outcome. And instead, I’m going to look for the goodness and presence of God.
One ordinary day at a time. One ordinary moment at a time.
If you need that too, I would love it if you would join me. It would genuinely bring me joy to see what brings you joy – what goodness you notice in the world, because most of us have no trouble agreeing on what makes us angry or frustrated. Maybe we can practice agreeing on the good, too.
Maybe none of us will emerge dramatically transformed but maybe we’ll notice more goodness, carry a little more peace, and arrive at Easter ready to celebrate with real joy when He is risen…
the kind of joy that feels earned because we actually learned to see it.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace

Alignment

Kristine Binder

At 60, I would love to tell you I have mastered self-love — that I wake up every day fully confident, fully certain, fully comfortable in my own skin. I don’t.
Many days I am still critical. Many days I still question myself. Many days I slip into old patterns of thinking I should be more, do more, fix more.
But I am finally understanding something I wish I learned decades ago: self-love isn’t a switch that flips on. It’s a pattern you recognize.
So, on Valentine’s day, instead of asking, Do I love myself?
I asked a better question:
Where am I already loving myself?
And suddenly the evidence was everywhere.
I love myself — and my brain — enough to read and learn something new every single day. Growth is not accidental at this age. It is a decision. Curiosity is hope in action, and I am still planning a future I want to be present for.
I love myself — and my body — enough to move it with intention every day. Not as punishment. Not to become smaller. But to stay alive inside this body that has carried me through six decades of joy, heartbreak, birth, grief, laughter, and survival…no matter what it looks like.
I love myself enough to walk slowly. To practice walking meditation. To be still in a world that profits off my distraction. Stillness used to feel unproductive. Now I understand it is repair.
I love myself enough to eat foods that nourish me and foods that delight me — because balance is health too. Deprivation never healed anyone. Peace did.
I love myself enough to love Lucky, my constant companion. His love is unconditional and unspoken. He does not ask me to be younger, thinner, quieter, nicer, easier. He just loves me. And in that loving, he reminds me I am allowed to exist without performing.
I love myself enough to finally stand up for what I know is right. Even when my voice shakes. Even when it disappoints people. Even when it costs me relationships I once tried to preserve at my own expense. Silence is not kindness to yourself.
I love myself enough to allow myself to feel grief. Real grief. Not the rushed, polite version. I have lost people, versions of my life, expectations, and imagined futures. Honoring that pain is not weakness — it is loyalty to my self and my own story.
I love myself enough to surround myself with beauty. Fresh flowers. Music. Words. Reflections of sunlight. The small things that say life is still offering me moments of beauty and I am still allowed to receive them.
And yes — I love myself enough to buy the things that others think frivolous but bring me joy. Joy is not wasteful. Joy is maintenance for the soul.
So no, I don’t fully love myself yet.
But I trust myself more.
I protect my peace more.
I choose myself more.
And maybe that is what self-love actually looks like at 60 — not arrival, but alignment.
Not perfection, but permission.
Yesterday was Valentine’s Day.
I did not wait for love to find me.
I practiced giving it to the one person who has been here for every single moment of my life.
Me.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace

Yes

Kristine Binder

For most of my life, “yes” came easily — sometimes too easily. I said yes to responsibility, to caregiving, to stepping in, smoothing things over, and holding everything together. I said yes to being strong even when it was quietly breaking me. I said yes to survival because it felt necessary, even when what I really wanted was to live.
That kind of yes kept me moving, but it also kept me stuck.
This year feels different. Not because everything around me has changed, but because I’m willing to respond differently.
This is the year of yes – and yes, most importantly, to myself.
I’m not talking about impulsive decisions or forced optimism. I’m talking about intentional yeses. Yeses to things I’ve never done before. Yeses to invitations I would have declined because they felt uncomfortable or unfamiliar. Yeses to challenges that pull me out of anxiety and into motion.
For a long time, fear made my choices for me. It disguised itself as caution and convinced me that staying where I was kept me safe. But staying where I was didn’t protect me – it just kept me circling the same thoughts and patterns, hoping for change without taking steps toward it.
Saying yes now means choosing experience over imagination. It means allowing myself to try without needing certainty or guarantees. I may not love everything. I may not enjoy every moment. But I am willing to show up and see what happens instead of deciding in advance that something won’t work.
This year of yes is about movement. It’s about curiosity instead of avoidance. It’s about letting action interrupt anxiety. I don’t need every step to feel comfortable –
I just need it to keep moving me forward.
So I’m saying yes – to new experiences, to challenges, to invitations, and to change. Not because I have everything figured out, but because fear doesn’t get to lead anymore.
This is my yes.
And I’m ready to see where it takes me.

Peace,
#tutulady
#forwardisapace