The Path Not Taken

& Lori Tucker-Sullivan on a full-circle era

Hi friend,

Last fall I went to Skidmore College to give the keynote for their incoming class, and it was a homecoming in so many ways. My dad was a professor at Skidmore, and I went to preschool there. Starting when I was barely a teen, I attended a music camp on Skidmore’s campus (where I met my husband Jon) and took dance classes too, and later some college classes. So it felt resonant when, during the Q&A portion of the event, a student raised their hand and asked, “If you could travel back to when you were in our shoes, what advice would you give?”

I looked out at the sea of faces, all so bright and young-looking—far younger-looking than I felt at eighteen. I thought about how, from the time I was young, I always had a multitude of interests. I loved music and threw myself into the double bass, waking up early before school to practice. After school I would head to my mom’s attic studio to draw and paint. I loved animals and spent my weekends walking dogs at our local animal shelter. I loved design; I was constantly making sketches of my future home and decorating and redecorating my bedroom. And of course, I loved to write and journal. But by the time I was the age of these students, I didn’t feel that kind of freedom. I felt instead tremendous pressure to know what I was going to do with my life—to choose one interest, to pick one path from among the many and charge forward on it, to let everything else fall by the wayside.

I’ve written before about how major life interruptions have ended up being some of the richest, most important times in my life. I think that’s because the plan is gone, and I’ve returned to what feels most natural, where there’s the most energy. So my advice to those first years at Skidmore was not to box themselves in too soon—that at least for the first year or two, they should follow their curiosity and be as wide-ranging as they could in their coursework, to feel a sense of freedom, to return to old interests and pick up new ones too.

With the forced interruption of illness all those years ago, I had to abandon the single path—and that has allowed for a plurality of passions and interests. It made space for me to be more than one thing, to do as Joan Didion instructed: to keep on nodding terms with my past selves. Not all require equal investment of time, not all will become a profession. But I feel most alive when I’m making space for those past selves—for the fullness of those different parts of me.

I am once again navigating a life interruption, and more than ever, I want to indulge all the things I love—to give space and attention and care to my love of dogs, design, words, painting, and music. And I want to remember that nothing is ever wasted—like all those years I spent pursuing the double bass. By sixteen, I was spending six hours a day practicing the double bass, commuting to the city to attend Juilliard each week. I missed out on things like my high school prom in the name of becoming a professional musician. It’s sometimes tempting to think, “Oh, I wasted time on this thing that didn’t become anything.” But music informs every aspect of my life. It affects how I write: theme, rhythm, motif, and structure all come to bear on my prose. It brought me my husband, and now we have a home filled with music. If you’re open enough, flexible enough, and paying attention, you can see the poetry and the mystery in how things shake out.

There are dormant parts of me that I’ve forgotten about, I’m sure, but it’s beautiful to think that something in the future will reawaken and revive them—that something could bring them back to life. Instead of living in regret, and fixating on the past, the work is to preserve that energy and to move forward with it. This brings me to today’s essay and prompt from the writer and longtime Isolation Journals community member, Lori Tucker-Sullivan, who has shared her stories of navigating various life transitions with us for years, whom I was so overjoyed to meet at my art opening this past June (pictured below). In her essay, she tells a poignant tale of the road not taken—and how sometimes, if you’re patient enough, the road you did take loops back around again. May her story allow you to imagine the various ways your own life can come full circle.

Sending love,

Suleika

Some items of note—

• Earlier this week we wrapped our fifth annual New Year’s Journaling Challenge, where we were celebrating and reveling in the idea of magic. So many of you commented on how powerful and transformative it was—how it allowed you to see magic in new and surprising ways, even in the hardest things. If you missed it, you can always start now! You can find all the reflections and prompts here.

• Mark your calendar! We’ve scheduled our next meeting of the Hatch, our virtual creative hour for paid subscribers for Sunday, January 26 from 1-2 pm ET. We’ll open with a short lecture and then spend time reflecting and creating together. It’s such a beautiful way to spend an hour of your Sunday—as one community member recently said, “I learned more in ten minutes than I often do in a full MFA class.” I hope you can join us!

From “The Alchemy of Blood” opening (l to r): Erin, Jon, me, and Lori. Photo by Nadia Albano.

Prompt 320. My Full-Circle Era by Lori Tucker-Sullivan

Growing up in Detroit, music was a significant part of my life—from Motown to Bob Seger to Iggy Pop—so I always knew I wanted music in my life. I also chronicled much of my childhood in journals and diaries. As a teen, I wished to marry these two loves and become a music writer, following bands around and writing edgy-yet-poignant profiles, so when I headed to college, I decided to study journalism.

But as so often happens, I changed course—my life went in a different direction. I graduated and married my college sweetheart, Kevin, and soon after, we discovered an abandoned farmhouse to renovate. The house became a never-ending domestic project. Kids followed, and I felt I needed to contribute to our family. Instead of pursuing the dreams of my youth, I took a flexible job in public relations and worked in marketing and administrative roles for the next twenty years. I was happy—but honestly, I always felt I was missing something. I spent years looking over my shoulder at the path not taken, wondering why, what if, and whether I should have done things differently. I sometimes felt I’d gone in the wrong direction, and that earlier versions of me would be disappointed.

Eventually, I realized that I needed writing and was also pretty good at it. I returned to school for my MFA, which Kevin supported. However, only one semester into that study, Kevin was diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma, a difficult cancer that took his life two years later. More losses followed, compounding my grief and making me question my purpose. Over the next three years, I lost both parents and three close friends. I sold the home we renovated and sent my children off to college. Suddenly all the things that had made up my identity were gone: no longer a daughter or wife, and only a mother distantly. Instead of thinking wistfully about the path not taken, I searched for the path I thought I would live forever, but it had disappeared. I couldn’t see a clear way forward.

It was a humbling time. I wondered how I could’ve possibly thought my life had ever been missing something. At the same time, I knew I had to forge a new way where there now was none. I accepted that the life I’d led was different than what younger me had anticipated, but it was also full of love and meaning. I no longer wanted to choose a different way, but instead, loop back in a way that honored me in all my phases. And so I determined to pursue my old loves of music and writing—to pick up where I’d left off years before. I wrote and recently published a book about the widows of my favorite rock stars and what these women could teach us (especially me, a fellow widow) about grief—an experience that was both life-affirming and life-changing.

The road ahead is now full of wonder and the unexpected. In a nod to pop culture, I’ve come to call this time my “full-circle era.” Armed with life lessons, memories, determination, and a full heart, I’m back where I began, taking new steps on beautifully familiar terrain.

Your prompt for the week:

Reflect on a road not taken. What have you left behind, and how might you pick it up again? Daydream your way into your full-circle era.

If you’d like, you can post your response to today’s prompt in the comments section, in our Facebook group, or on Instagram by tagging @theisolationjournals. As a reminder, we love seeing your work inspired by the Isolation Journals, but to preserve this as a community space, we request no promotion of outside projects.

Today’s Contributor—

Lori Tucker-Sullivan’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Sun, and Salon, among other publications. A two-time Pushcart nominee, her essay, “Detroit, 2015” was awarded Honorable Mention in Best American Essays of 2015. Her book, I Can’t Remember if I Cried: Rock Widows on Life, Love and Legacy, was published in 2024. You can find Lori and her book at lorituckersullivan.com.

For more paid subscriber benefits, see—

• Shame Shepherds & Grace for Fuck-Ups, an installment of my advice column Dear Susu, where I answer a question from a man who’s been incarcerated for over half his life and wants to write his story but is stymied by shame

• Consider the Lilies, where I write about the tyranny of striving and hustle culture and meditate on how I first learned—and am relearning—the importance of rest

• Studio Visit: Hospital Edition, where I talked about returning to painting after a decades-long hiatus and gave a behind-the-scenes tour of my hospital room turned art studio

Our Isolation Journal No. 1—

The other day I saw a comment from a community member who had filled her special edition Isolation Journal to the last page and wondered if we had more—and we do! Get yours at the link below before they’re gone!