Decades & Transitions

Today D. was at a beach barbeque for my MBA program. Many of the students in the program are younger than me. At one point someone was commenting about their age and I mentioned I was 43. A stunned silence came across the group. It was like I'd just informed them that I had terminal cancer.

I think part of this is because people think I am younger than I am. In fact, a moment or two after the initial effect, several of the men in the group said they thought I was 30, and some of the women thought I was in my 20s. Some demanded my drivers license for verification.

D. has been thinking of what being 40-something means. BF and I are not typical 40-somethings. We've never been married, had kids, and still live a somewhat single, yet partnered lifestyle. We like our ability to travel and pursue the good things in life - the things that everyone else seems to have already been doing while we were struggling in low paying times of our careers. So we're flaunting it, a little, for now.

Still, when not globetrotting, I find I spend a lot more time alone than I did in my 30s - partially due to my educational goals, partially due to not needing to seek out social support 24-7 as I did when I was younger. All of my married-with-children counterpart's schedules are booked for the next 20 years. All of my single friends travel in packs, synchronizing their schedules appropriately.

Still I am trying to find a way to deal with BF's job, which causes me to live a solitary life for half of the time, a partnered life for the other half. We have decided we will be getting married (although not yet officially engaged) so I am now faced with the prospect of coming out of limbo and making permanent social arrangements to deal with this scenario.

I am thinking we need to hang out with more airline pilot couples, as their wives understand this weird mix. When one is single, one cultivates many supportive friendships, one one is coupled, these fizzle, or turn into couple friends. We're in the middle. I'm too busy with him when he's here to socialize with anyone else, then when he's gone, I'm alone. And now I have to fix that.

Shameless, Boundaryless Stalkerazzi

Thank you Mr. Stalkerazzi. Life is much better now that I've seen Mrs. Jackson relentlessly followed around a Target in the middle of the night:



No, keep asking. I'm sure she wants to talk to you... she's just shy.

A Tumultuous Year

D. is getting tired of tragedy. 2009 seems to be a year of seemingly constant turbulence, encompassing financial markets, housing markets, job markets, celebrities and ill fated air craft... and it's all starting to get to me.

The sky, it seems, is always falling - it is just a condition of the new age. Every time you almost catch your breath, some well meaning reporter releases a story detailing how things really aren't getting much better, despite appearances.

Warren Buffett was the most recent voice of despair letting us know that things really aren't going to improve all that soon. Yesterday I read a story which, though it mentioned many positive things about the Florida housing market, made sure the headline led with bone chilling gloom and doom.

Untimely prominent deaths of generational icons. Mysterious crashes with unanswerable questions and unlocatable clues. A relentless hemorrhaging of jobs. Failure of banks. Closing of businesses - both large national ones and small, local varieties. Would-be pandemics. The recent death of two family members. Two otherwise healthy friends diagnosed with end stage cancer in their early 40s.

Add to that constant academic pressure, work stress and a significant other who is frequently gone and I have just one word to say:

E N O U G H!

Things must improve now...