In the past couple of months, I have been filled with the sense that I am completely okay with my life as it is. If I were to be given a prognosis of having only 3 or 12 or 18 months to live, I feel very much like I would not have feel any any despair about
the work I have not done
the books I haven’t published
the potential I have not fulfilled
I would feel despair, of course! But I imagine it would be about my loved ones, plus just the weird gnarliness of, like, mortality.
But after having a real shit 18 months before this summer, feeling contentment is most welcome.
I am convinced it has everything to do with the blessings of middle age. It’s this thing that I wrote about yesterday, that Bowie said, about aging being a moment when you can become more of yourself.
That’s what it is–I feel more myself than I have felt, like, ever, or perhaps since I was 12.