I have a pretty long commute into Atlanta for work during the week. After Erik died, I could only listen to sad songs and found an actual channel called “feeling blue radio” to solidify my sparkling attitude on the way into work. I have since eased my way back into managing my attention span for one podcast episode a day. And I prefer it to be narrated by someone British. Because don’t they just sound like they know what they are talking about?

The political podcasts are too scary and the self help podcasts are too heavy. And I have listened to enough true crime podcasts to become a private detective. So I am going to learn or relearn new things that perhaps my early south side schooling may have missed because we were learning how to square dance and how to write in cursive.

Currently, I am knee deep in the Roman Empire. And in full disclosure, I was now-years-old when I learned about the Roman Empire. I have been listening to a podcast called “The Ancients” and there is a whole episode just on how plagues contributed to the fall of the Roman Empire.

I hate to spoil the plot but apparently no one lived long during the 100’s years. I mean those guys had a lot going on between their plagues and their famines and their wars and all their issues with the Gods. The average life span was about 30 years old just because so many kids did not live to their first birthday.

Can you imagine the way those families experienced their lives if everyone was just dying all the time? Were they all a little more detached knowing the odds were against them? I think we can learn something from the Stoics of that time. Here are some cliff notes I learned for all of us while sitting in traffic on GA400. You’re welcome.

They understood they had very little control over anything but themselves. And they still found peace and purpose in what they could control…their response to the world happening around them. They didn’t spend their time overthinking about things (and people) they couldn’t change. They were not worrying about their 401k or which kidult was more likely to take care of them when they were old. They knew bad things were going to happen and they rolled with it. I kind of want to fist bump Marcus Arelius right now. 

All this historical traffic pondering helps me put context around this big world and my presence in it. I have been really feeling ALONE lately. Not necessarily lonely, but solo in a way I’ve never had to live before. My “empty nesting season” is coming in a totally different way than Erik and I had once dreamed of together. The stoic Romans might have just shrugged their shoulders at my suffering and called it a Tuesday.

They remind me that I cannot control what has happened but I can control my response to it. After all, it is not like we have the bubonic plague and pestilence brewing all the time. There is a real good chance I will find some joy and purpose in my days ahead! And on the bad days, I guess we have to take those as they come. I am pretty sure they won’t be pestilence level bad.

Our lives are just a small part of a bigger tapestry of life. Our stories are built on the stories around us and before us and after us. We won’t all end up well documented philosophers or carved into marble busts like some of the popular kids from the ancient Romans. And I know the empire of Allisonius McCarthius Setterlindius is temporary. So I might just try to rule it with more courage, more self-love, more gratitude, more chocolate, and more peace. I do have that under my control.