The evening was considerably calmer this time, but it was still a winner. Dinner with some folks, a stop at a couple pubs with others, and then back home -- where a small group raided kitchens for wine and we sat talking until 5am in the dim lights of the common room with rain falling into the garden outside. I got almost no sleep, because I had to be up for training the next day; as Gilbert & Sullivan put it, "Duty, duty must be done, the rule applies to everyone; and painful though that duty be, to shirk the task were fiddle-de-dee." But it was totally worth it."So," people keep asking me, "how does it feel? What wisdom do you have to share?" I more or less laughed off these questions, because the difference from one day to another is not that substantial, and therefore January 30th felt very much like January 29th, and age 30 thus far is not strikingly different from age 29. However, lately I've been thinking that somewhere along the way I've acquired some wisdom after all. Without going into detail, a close friend (a current undergrad) is having something of a crisis in her personal life, and since I was peripherally involved in the situation she and I have been talking about it a lot in the past few days. Although it's a thorny and uncomfortable situation, I find that at this age I know -- not just intellectually but in my bones -- that things like this happen, that it's part of the complicated mess of trying to muddle through life with the best intentions, and that it will all work out one way or another as long as everyone means well. Understanding that, and the corollary that we have to empathize with people in their tight spots, feels like wisdom worth having. And I'm so much more confident and comfortable in my own skin now than I was at 20 that I'd say the decade bodes well.
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