in a week or so, I’ll turn 40, and I’m all torn in knots about it. whatever that means.

not the “i’m 40, what have i done with my life” angst. that, i have pretty much all the time.

no, it’s what to do. some friends suggested going skiing in tahoe. ok, we’re doing that. and i’m taking andie and myself to costa rica for a week. ok.

but for some reason i thought about having a party, at my apartment. which is quite small. and someone nicely, thoughtfully offered to have something at their place, which is much larger, has better parking, und so weiter.  and i bristled. hard.

trying to put my finger on it, the best i can come up with is that this will be a snapshot moment of my life, one i imagined for some time and it’s now here. and i’m in a new place, and working incredibly hard, and don’t have much of a social life at all outside of work, and have this ookey feeling about inviting people i work with just because we see each other every day, and wishing i was well rooted in a place and people and not, instead, here, like this: a small apartment. few close friends. a sense of uncertainty.

i recall liz mccoy’s birthday. how jealous i was, so many people so woven in her life. her ski friends, her book group, the folks from work, the old suwa pals, the people she’d met through her husband. all knowing each other for years, all sharing their lives and fortunes and fates.

none of that is open to me now. the people i’ve known have for the most part drifted away, and the new ones still settling into place. perhaps then this is a the perfect time for this and the perfect thing to happen, for it’s the exact reflection of a life lived interstitially. these are the wages i’ve earned for the work i’ve done, the wine from the grapes i’ve not tended. ten years ago, in DC, such a crowd, and for some, at least, it felt real. now…i don’t know. i genuinely don’t. and it’s leaving me oh, so raw.