Suddenly, I find myself 29 years old. Merciful heavens, but I am aging.

There is this urge to reconnect, to look up people online and find out what all has been accomplished. So I get to moving: I sign up on three different 'networking' sites and browse by high school and college class and bam. I get what I ask.

Pictures and blogs and citings and mishaps and photos and travels and babies and grad schools--people have been mightily industrious while I've been sitting around. People have been doing things. In fact, I'm aghast at how grown up we all are--that, in of itself, is a feat which I never considered. And so I sit, glancing at photos, a voyeur of these high school fellows. I am not much different now as I was then, staring at people walking down hallways, musing about their lives and hairstyles. Constantly comparing myself to their achievements and reckonings. So-and-so is in France, so-and-so is a lawyer and a social worker and a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity and in her spare time, she knits sweaters for children in Mongolia.

I live in Detroit with a wonderful husband and a cat. I work forty hours a week at a job that is mildly interesting. After that, I am home, knitting or gardening or drinking coffee. This past weekend, Michael and I went to Chicago and did tourist-y things. That was the most thrilling thing we've done since last February, when we moved to this Godforsaken part of the world (N.B. I do love Detroit).

I'm having an existential crisis, thanks to these damnable networking sites. Today, I joined Weight Watchers. Next week, I'm going to a Buddhist temple in order to master the refined art of deprivation and meditation. Next month, I'm enrolling in a graduate program (of what study, I know not. I just have to have more education). Three months from now, I'll be pregnant and learning how to trim topiary. In thirteen months, I will be in Indonesia (baby strapped to my breast), learning Sanskrit and strange yoga poses. One year from now, I will be on the cover of Time Magazine (husband and baby in tow), featured for solving the world's global food crisis (kitchen gardens, duh).


Maybe then, I can face the past.

But the teachings of the Yogis proclaim I must guard myself from these thoughts--these misconceptions of the importance (or unimportance) of my own life. All of these things seem totally egocentric. So: I will meditate. I will try to control my food instead of my food controlling me. I will smile more and have faith in my smile. And maybe (just maybe) I'll think about going back to school. But most importantly, I will love and respect myself.

I will look forward to seeing me in the mirror, and giving to that person as I would anyone else. God is good. Hamas. I am That.

I'm ALL that, and a bag of chips.