501 Subscribers

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

Dear Readers,

My lonely Substack is now supported by 501 subscribers. I am humbled by your support and readership since March 23, 2023. On that date, I could not sleep. I had a vision of writing about life beyond dogmas and slogan words. I knew the feeling of being too white for some, and too black for others. This exquisite place drove me to examine life. As a former law professor, I brought to my essays reasoning, a sense of history and endless curiosity. There have been genuine moments of breakthrough, reflection and introspection.

I wrote the sort of essays I would like to read. Never predictable if I could help it, always emergent in consciousness. I have opened up my lonesome life and shared the stuff of existence, all the things like unloving someone, loving the hurt away, loving loved ones close and distant, loving myself in a world strange to my small-town upbringing.

How often in life do we peer behind the mask and see someone living a human life? This has been my hope with this lonely Substack. And your readership reminds me my endeavor has mattered. I thank you, one and all. This is an anniversary essay that shows my growth over the course of this lonely Substack:

Gotterdammerung April 9, 2025

One of my high school classmates, Mike Anderson, posted a splendid message from Jimmy Buffet Day about growing well into advancing years. I have thought about the whirlwinds of time all around me. One moment, “Henry,” is at our Book Club meeting by the harbor. The next moment he is stricken with cancer. And then there is a funeral attended by hundreds. A close family member is diagnosed with a chronic disease and must decide how to disclose the ailment to the member’s children and siblings. Someone loses their father. I lose my father. A young one loses her love in life. I want to make sense of these rapid developments all around me and I thank Mike for his Facebook post:

There comes a quiet turning in the road of life. It doesn’t announce itself with fireworks or fanfare. It arrives softly, like the moment you realize the sun has shifted in the room and everything is suddenly warmer.

When we’re young, our pockets are filled with plans. We chase horizons as if they might run away without us. We measure our days in accomplishments, in ladders climbed, in how loudly the world says our name. Time feels endless then, like an ocean that never learned the word “shore.”

But somewhere along the way, the tide changes.

You begin to notice smaller things, not because they grew larger, but because you finally slowed down enough to see them. The laugh that lingers after a shared memory. The way morning light rests gently on the kitchen table. The familiar voice on the other end of the phone that no longer feels ordinary, but sacred.

Priorities don’t collapse. They rearrange themselves, like stars shifting into a new constellation.

You start choosing people over proving points. Quiet dinners over crowded calendars. Depth over distance. The world doesn’t get smaller. It becomes more meaningful. Every moment carries weight, not as a burden, but as a gift you’re careful not to drop.

You realize that happiness isn’t always found in the grand chapters. Sometimes it lives in the margins. In the pause before a hug. In the comfort of sitting beside someone without needing to speak. In the simple, astonishing miracle that your heart keeps beating and you get another sunrise to witness.

Growing older teaches you that life was never meant to be rushed through. It was meant to be tasted. Slowly. Like a story you don’t want to end.

There’s a sweetness that arrives with this understanding. A gentleness. You forgive more easily. You hold tighter to what matters. You let go of the noise. And suddenly, being alive feels less like something you’re racing through and more like something you’re honored to experience.

You look around and realize: this is it. The laughter, the love, the imperfect days, the quiet mornings, the people who stayed, the ones who shaped you, the memories that glow like lanterns behind you.

And in that moment, you don’t wish for more time as much as you appreciate the time you’ve been given.

Because growing older isn’t just about years added. It’s about vision gained. It’s about understanding that the most beautiful thing in the world is not what you achieve, but that you were here at all. That you felt deeply. That you loved fiercely. That you stood in the sunlight of ordinary days and realized they were extraordinary all along.

There is a profound beauty in simply being alive.

When you see it, truly see it, life stops feeling like something you’re chasing…

…and starts feeling like something you’re gently holding in your hands, grateful for every breath.