I am thirty-nine years old. 39. It’s kind of cool to be here, teetering on the edge of a decade that starts with a four. I’m not overfond of the number four but I’d rather not be dead so here’s to picking your battles!<\/p>\n
You’re as old as you feel. If pressed, I might say that I *feel* thirty-two. I think this is because I had a child at thirty-two and my life is on pause. I mean, not really. I am living my life. Here I am right now in this moment. Hi. <\/p>\n
Hello.<\/p>\n
Hi.<\/p>\n
Part of me feels like my old life got suspended in amber when Arlo was born and this seven years of my new life is just a fork, a path I took, and maybe when it ends I’ll go back to being thirty-two. So let’s see, that would be when he’s eighteen, in eleven years, when I am hey fifty!<\/p>\n
Oh, I see. That would be the mid-life crisis: when I come back to being not-a-parent, or, a parent still but not of small children, and I’m not thirty-two at all, I’m fifty.<\/p>\n
Ha ha! Surprise! The path back to your old life is CLOSED. Overgrowth, snakes, you know how it is. You can’t go back.<\/p>\n
(But wait, childless people have mid-life crises too.)<\/p>\n
Of course I know all this, but there is a difference between what the head knows and what the soul wants. The soul sometimes wishes she could pick up where she left off at thirty-two. But the head knows a) that’s a fool’s errand and b) the soul and the head are way better off now. All smart and more accepting and empathic and relaxed about stuff. <\/p>\n
Where are we going in these woods? Where does this fork lead? I don’t know. But I have bear spray and common sense and some trail mix and overall, it’s a nice walk. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am thirty-nine years old. 39. It’s kind of cool to be here, teetering on the edge of a decade that starts with a four. I’m not overfond of the number four but I’d rather not be dead so here’s to picking your battles! You’re as old as you feel. If pressed, I might say […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,18],"class_list":["post-386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-my-navel-is-awesome","tag-the-parenthood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=386"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":390,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386\/revisions\/390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/torturedpotato.com\/the_comeback\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}