The Next Day

Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward

Nonfiction has not been my thing this year. My brain thinks the country’s reality right now is more than enough for it to deal with, so I’ve been ignoring the nf section in the library. Something though about this book made me pick it up. Maybe because I was fortunate to hear Melinda French Gates in conversation with Ann Patchett (best book event ever 😍) two years ago.

In The Next Day Gates relays key moments her life and the lessons she learned from them. This included her decision to end her marriage to Bill Gates—an event she could easily have gone scorched earth about, but didn’t, merely sharing the pain of losing something she deeply believed in. This seismic upheaval in her personal life led her to explore paths she’d never wandered before, but the book is not just about the demise of her marriage and its impact on her life’s journey. It begins with her childhood and the lessons her parents taught her and goes right to the present day as a mature, vibrant 60-year-old woman who is still navigating her way through life’s transitions. Her hard-earned insights will resonate with any woman at any stage of life that requires letting go and change.

For me, this was profound reading. Gates discovers the importance of ‘the pause’, the transition between life’s happenings. A space most of us rush through in an effort to get to/find the next familiar thing. She advocates staying in the liminal space when it appears. And listening. A concept, frankly, I’ve avoided my whole life. I’m a power-through, I’ll-cry-later, keep going, try harder kind of gal. It worked for much of my life and I’m grateful, but increasingly I’m being faced with the fact that (as my neurologist told me): if you try and push through MS it will push back. That mindset is no longer healthy, meaning I need to learn a new vocabulary with different verbs and ways of living than those that have been second nature.

Gates makes no claim to having all the answers in The Next Day, she simply shares what she herself has come to learn and how it’s helped her. It might seem that someone with her resources could not possibly understand what the rest of us go through, but that’s not the case. She is a woman of tremendous grace, humor, compassion, and intelligence, all of which warm the pages of The Next Day. I’m so grateful this book found me. It was both comforting and a beacon, soothing my frenetic mind while also giving me food for thought.

Have you ever had a book unexpectedly come into your life at exactly the right time? Please share in the comments!