"If I Knew Then" by Jann Arden

Okay, so I'm on a Jann Arden roll right now. ;)  Having just finished "Feeding My Mother" last night (reviewed here), I immediately dove into Jann's next/most recent book, "If I Knew Then: Finding Wisdom in Failure and Power in Aging," which had also been languishing in my gargantuan to-be-read pile since it was released in the fall of 2020.

It didn't take me very long to tear through it -- just a couple of hours -- both because it's a short book (under 200 well-spaced pages), but also because it's highly readable.  

With both parents gone and approaching her 60th birthday (a milestone that happened a few weeks ago), Jann ponders her past and her relationships with her parents, and offers her thoughts on aging, death, failure, regret and becoming a crone (a title that Gateway Women's Jody Day has encouraged us to reclaim!). There's a lot of hard-won wisdom shared here, delivered with Jann's trademark wit & humour.  I'm not sure I'm quite there yet alongside her (getting there, maybe??) -- but I loved everything she had to say. (I read the hardcover version, but I can imagine listening to her narrate the audiobook would be great.) 

A couple of sample passages: 

What I think about now couldn't be further from brooding on time running out. Instead, I'm focused on reimagining and reinvention, the act of becoming someone I always hoped I would be. I feel that I am a wise woman emerging through the trees with a renewed sense of the purpose of my own glorious life. (p. 5) 

...yes, it is possible to bloom extremely late in life. I am blooming as I sit here. I can feel myself blooming. You can never stop blooming, people. That's the best part of being a human being. (p. 51) 

For such a long time, I didn't think getting older was going to be all that useful, to be honest. The glamour and joy of youth is pounded into us at every turn, so that we end up dreading the one thing that holds a hell of a lot of power in real life: wisdom. (p. 123) 

Maybe I'm missing a few bricks in my wall, but I prefer the older, more beat-up version of myself. I prefer the lines on my face and the bits and pieces of me that have broken off and now rattle around inside my chest. I prefer my current state of ease and grace and intermittent wisdom. I like the fact that I'm finally at a place where I can breathe in and out without being strangled by self-doubt and constant worry about things that might happen. I like my new steadfastness when it comes to decisions that would have stolen my sleep twenty years ago. I like how I feel about who I am. It's exhilarating. (p. 163) 

5 stars on Goodreads.

This was Book #21 read to date in 2022 (and Book #5 finished in April), bringing me to 47% of my 2022 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 45 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 8 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2022 tagged as "2022 books."