In which I no longer have any choice but to self-identify as middle-aged.

I’ll be 44 on the 29th of this month.

I feel mature, but I do not feel like an adult… whatever that means. I still feel like an idiot high school kid every time I’m startled awake by an alarm clock.

I do not have the things adults should have. I do not want them, to be honest, but sometimes I feel guilty for failing to accumulate them even though I didn’t intend to fail. I don’t mean ‘mature’ in the sense of material things anyway; I mean that I’ve found the inner guru and everything from here on out is a-okay. I mean that though I am indistinguishable from a worldly person, I’m not one and if I die living in a cardboard box under a bridge, it won’t be a tragedy.

My grandmother will be 90 on the 14th. The whole family will be here for her birthday party this weekend; I’m really looking forward to it. The last time we were all together was for her 85th, the party at which I decided to move to Walla Walla.

I’ll have been here five years in October! Since the end of my 30’s! The woman I came to help is only now beginning to slow down; maybe I’ll start being useful to her at some point. Sadly, I’m not any good at gardening but I can lift and carry well enough, and I can shop and do laundry and follow directions.

Of course, she might just retire into the Odd Fellow’s home, which means I’d be renting a room somewhere, and that’s okay too. Some of my aunts and uncles may retire here; it’s nice to have family around.

If I move again, I might go to a coastal town so I can meditate on the beach and cultivate an elaborate coffee addiction and fit in with the locals by bitching about never seeing the sun. I love the ocean. When I lived in Pacifica within sight of it I did actually go to the beach and walk and breathe and sit, which is why I think my love for the coast might not just be entirely tourist-love. (My tourist-love is New York, of course, but I’ll never have the money to move there and that’s okay. Plus I’m old now, aren’t you even paying attention?)

I have a Turkish coffee set but I’ll need to replace the gasket in my stove-top espresso maker if I’m going to start really nerding out on coffee again.

Autumn is weeks away. It’s dark by eight o’clock. I’ve put a quilt on my bed. It’s cold in the mornings. I hope there’s no ice or snow until February.