People in the US do languages wrong. We don’t teach other languages until junior high or high school, when children have more difficulty in learning them. I took French for two years in high school, and I barely know enough to get to the bathroom. I don’t know verb tenses, and I don’t know many verbs in the first place. But I have the first conversation in the French textbook memorized:

Bonjour, Guy.

Bonjour, Michel. Ca va?

Oui, ca va.

(My keyboard does not do cedillas.)

I also can say “Shall we go to the beach?” In French, which will come in handy perhaps never.

It disadvantages me that I do not speak other languages. Not only in international travel, but the fact that the more languages one knows, the easier one can learn new languages. So a lifetime of facility in languages has been denied me.

I went to graduate school with people who knew five languages. In many African countries, this is apparently the norm. I envied them their ability to communicate. I still do. The American Way is not ideal.

When I was in high school, I participated in various extracurricular activities. I tried out for school plays and musicals, I participated in the Madrigals group, and I even spent 20 minutes in track (I quit while I was ahead). I wanted to do these things and I found a sense of belongingness while doing them. They also helped me get into the University of Illinois.

When I was in college, however, I didn’t participate in groups or clubs. At the university, I was a small fish in a big pond and the size of the pond intimidated me. University of Illinois had about 40,000 students in 1981, and the groups were full of talented people with greater drive than I had.

As a professor, I encourage my students to participate in extracurricular activities, and I envy them their participation. I really feel I should have continued my participation in something during college, anything. Even if I was a tiny fish in the ocean.

So the advise I would give to someone younger than me is “get involved.” Whatever appeals — theater or chorus, political organizations or speaking clubs, sports or role-playing — participate.

My top tip to be successful in life is simple: Be curious.

Curiosity is what brings us to the things we are interested in; the things we want to do. I can’t think about success without interest; I can’t think of interest without curiosity.

Curiosity is what drives us to learn. I can’t think of success without learning, either. And I can’t think of learning without curiosity.

Curiosity is what gets me up in the morning and drives my reading, my writing, my experiences. I want to know. And everything I learn opens up an avenue. Some I pursue, some I do not.

Being curious moves me forward. Without curiosity, I am an inert lump on a couch. Which is the opposite of successful.

I highly recommend being curious.

When I was 20, I was diagnosed with a mood disorder, cyclothymia. This is ‘bipolar lite’, or rapid cycling minor to moderate mood swings. Think of the mood swings as being faster and lighter than Bipolar II, which is not as manic as Bipolar I.

The meds were not as good back then as they are now. We’re talking 40 years ago. The doc put me on lithium and a tricyclic antidepressant. There were no SSRI or SNRIs back then, and tricyclics didn’t work for everyone. They didn’t work for me. So the lithium was regulating the highs and nothing was working for the lows. I stayed depressed all the time.

I finally decided that I didn’t need medication and took myself off it, going back to a yo-yo mood and years of poor sleep.

It took thirty years before I was diagnosed with Bipolar II Disorder. The symptoms had gotten bad enough that I could not sleep in my hypomanic days, and depressions were deep. With some trial and error, however, the new medications available helped me find a new normal where sleepless nights are seldom and I don’t cry for days at a time.

I wish I had taken the people at student health seriously, because I could have saved myself years of what I thought was simple insomnia. I wish I could tell 20-year-old me to stay on the meds and maybe try another antidepressant. I probably would have made better decisions with the right medication.

On the other hand, would I be who I am today if I had stayed on the medication? Would I have been creative? (I think so, but on the other hand I would not have had hopeless crushes, which fueled a lot of creativity for me). Would my life have been as interesting? I will never know.

The one rule that has helped me in making healthy boundaries in relationships is also one of the hardest ones to get into my head. It makes perfect sense yet is maddening.

The key, I’ve learned, is “You can’t make someone do anything.” This has staggering implications. You can’t make someone take out the garbage. You can’t keep someone from cheating. It seems unfair, but it’s true.

You can choose how to react to what the other person is doing. You can argue with them, ignore them, walk away. You can communicate so both of your viewpoints are heard. If that doesn’t work, you can go into therapy or break up. Or both.

It’s not a comforting truth. We want things to go our way, because tension is uncomfortable. Conflict is not pleasant. But it is inevitable, because conflict is what happens when someone’s needs are not being met.

The bright part of this is that trying to control the other is a great part of why relationships fail. Accepting that you can’t control someone else is a way out. Use your words, learn to argue better, nurture the positive so that your relationship feels ‘worth it’ — this is the rest of how to do healthy relationships. But it starts with “You can’t make someone do anything.”

These ideas are not original with me. I would recommend works by John and Julie Gottman for more on healthy relationships.

I’m a Boomer, so expect my choice in songs to be old, before your time. The song that came to mind, the one that always puts me in a good mood, is “Lola” by the Kinks. That garage band jangle, the winking lyrics, the feel of perpetual summer.

I understand it’s a controversial song these days, for a different reason than the original one. Originally, the controversy was singing about a trans person at all. Nowadays, it is about whether the song fetishizes being trans. I don’t think it does. It’s a playful nod to the twists and turns of sexuality. It tells us life is not always what we expected.

When I hear that opening riff, I am back riding shotgun in an automobile, endless summer ahead of me, reveling in being alive.

The person I spend the most time with is my husband. We suit each other well. He has a silly sense of humor, which appeals to me, and we have much in common. He supports my writing, and I support his collecting Star Trek replicas. (I have also supported his writing, but he does very little of that).

We have been married for 19 years (as he reminds me). It doesn’t seem that long, to be honest. Years just fly by, and I swear I’m only 45 (I’m not). It’s enough time that we finish each others’ sentences. Enough time that we kind of look alike.

Richard is my favorite person. The cats like him too. I think I’ll keep him.