The night before the election just a week ago, I was anxious, but resigned. Soon, we would have an answer and we could move on with our lives having a sense of what the next four years would be like.
I wanted to write about how I was feeling at that moment, a written time capsule that I could look back on. But I didn’t.
This Halloween was clear and chilly, and a Saturday. In an alternate universe, it would have been the perfect day for trick-or-treating, but the sidewalks were empty.
I turned 40 earlier this week. It doesn’t feel different from 39.
Our entire family went together to a local park and did a hike, then we went out for ice cream. The hike was dreamy both because we were all there and because the weather and scenery were beautiful.
I had this idea in my head that I was going to write a thoughtful, reflective, and timely post about turning 40, but instead I spent the days leading up to my birthday feeling alternately ambivalent and depressed.
I have always been a bit of a late bloomer. My stinky attitude would have me believe all the ladies I see who seem to be wiser, more confident, and more balanced than I am are just good fakers.
Maybe they really ARE wiser, more confident, and have the secret to life balance, and perhaps they are further along the journey than I am despite the fact that I’m older.
I used to feel pretty isolated in our neighborhood. It’s not that anyone was openly unfriendly, we just didn’t talk to each other very much.
We aren’t the type of neighborhood that has block parties and drinks beer together while we listen to good music, shouting at our kids and our dogs, and contemplating the trajectory of the universe as the sun goes down.
We prefer to do those activities separately.
One of the ways I stay anchored is verbal processing.
I don’t like that I need to talk through things out loud with another human in order to figure out how I feel or what I think.
I’d like to be self sufficient, but there are times that everything just builds up inside in a huge murky morass until I relent and the Chaplain submits to the maelstrom.
