Friday Flames | 1.19.24

A weekly synopsis of what we figured out about early/late retirement strategies, living together/apart, and charming/disturbing children's songs.

Love together, live apart

Magda has been back in Michigan all this week, during which the persistent snow and bone-deep cold have derailed a lot of plans. And instead of waking up next to her husband, whom she loves, she’s been sharing her bed with warm laundry, a knitting project, and some peanut butter cups. It’s untenable, but not entirely terrible.

Which got us thinking about the myriad living arrangements we 21st-century mid-lifers are finding. Many more of us are mostly fine living alone, especially on wheels. Some couples are happy to share a love but keep just about everything else—finances, bedrooms, addresses—as separate as possible. And the unattached are finding friendship and flexible finances by living with a roommate.

Then there are the couples who break up but still share a roof, like we did for 18 months before we could find and afford two nearby apartments in New York City. That experience would make a great novel, even though in many ways that reality was stranger than fiction.

How are you thinking about your midlife living arrangements? Whatever they are, we hope you’re as alone or together as you want to be.

Embers in the News

Here are some of the links that peeked through the noisy news cycle this week:

• More loan forgiveness The Biden administration announced today it is forgiving another $5 billion in student loan debt. Parents of college kids are rejoicing.

• Eating plants pays off later Plant-based protein is much more likely to benefit women’s long-term health than animal-based protein.

• Think different about middle age In an interview with Harvard Business Review, Chip Conley, author of Learning to Love Midlife, explains how to find new energy, fulfilment, and success in middle age.

• Retirement strategies for any stage It’s never too late to prepare for retirement. Here are some step-by-step, age-be-age recommendations.

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This week on the podcast

We've learned a ton about midlife from our podcast guests. But conversations like this one remind us of how much we like learning from each other—and how thankful we are that we still can.

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Currently reading

Magda just finished the octopus book and sobbed through the last 30 pages (in the best way). She's about to start Novelist As A Vocation, Haruki Murakami’s second memoir. She loved his first one about running marathons, and she expects to love this one about writing novels.

Sequels are so rarely funnier than their predecessors, but Less Is Lost is so far proving to be a strong exception. You read lines like “to love someone ridiculous is to understand something deep and true about the world. That up close it makes no sense,” and you just keep nodding and laughing.

Currently watching

Doug is abandoning all thoughts of productivity and enjoying the long-overdue arrival of Northern Exposure reruns to the 21st century. There are many movies on the horizon—like Poor Things, Saltburn, and Oppenheimer (when it gets to Peacock next month)—but they’ll just have to wait.

Magda has been by herself in Detroit all week, so she's been catching up (once again) on Days Of Our Lives. Boring but true.

Currently cooking

Magda needs to bake something for the Friends of the Library bake sale. If you were going to a library book sale, what would you likely buy at the bake sale? Last time, there were a lot of brownies and chocolate chip cookies, so she's thinking maybe lemon bars or carrot cake. Tell us what you think in the TAWTFGU Facebook group.

Once of the unforeseen results of our son’s summers of French-immersive canoeing is his fondness for shakshuka. Doug likes to add some ground lamb and serve it over rice while singing Alouette (whose lyrics are more disturbing than you might think).

Next on the podcast

Bill Braine discusses his unique family tradition for Getting Things Done and explains how he limp-walked out of the hospital within hours of his hip-replacement surgery.

Thanks for reading, and we wish we had eight arms to hold you.

Magda and Doug