Waiting to Feel or Waiting Not to Feel

God, I love when anticipated things occur without my knowledge - things I've been awaiting - and then, like tonight, I search for some song on iTunes and I see that The National's new album is finally out - today, no less. I've been checking in on this for over a year, and when it's still months away it hurts a little, like having to pee but no bathroom in proximity, and so the best action to take is to forget, to trick yourself into distraction.

So there's this distracting business of walking, talking, doing whatever is the everyday thing, and there is suddenly a place to relieve oneself, and it's rapid rushing memory once again, such a sweet sweet relief, an overwhelming welcome after all the pushed back, dammed up waiting. And so it was tonight. It feels so much better not to have to bide time. Yes, I totally compared my favorite band to having to pee.

I shouldn't even have a "favorite band" at 32 years of age, I'm too effing old to say things like "that's my favorite band!" I make myself blush. I feel that at this age I know what I like and what I don't like, and I do not often feel the need to identify favorites as if identifying them contributes to my perceived identity somehow, helps me to get myself. I get myself.

However and that said: what a weird age, this 30-something-ness. I talked for hours with my dear Candice the other day - she's in Stockholm, called to say she's moving to London and she's getting married on the date of their 10th anniversary and we talked about that and about our weddings and our moving about and the realizing that we've known each other for 12 years. Can you beat that? She says something like "I like what I know but I don't know if I like myself yet" and I feel exactly the same way. The things she says half a world away are the same things I say on this other half of the world.

Here we are, far beyond then, but not yet at when. And yet, even so, still okay with everything because being this far in life means: A) you have to be okay, and B) you want to be okay, and C) you can admit without shame if you are not A or B. It's something about trusting your wherewithal to evolve and make better, and the glorious relief of being honest because those who would judge are less and less concerning.

Yes that's it. That's how it feels to be 32. The cusp between thrusting out pridey chests and needing to be appreciated for every skill you can offer the world, how you can make it better; and the other side of almost being old enough to not give a flinging flip what anyone else thinks of your deeds or thoughts or reactions. It's always a middle place, it seems, waiting to feel or waiting not to feel. The feeling, at all, is the point because life is a series of feelings.

I should have known about The National's new album because my friend, Matt, is touring with them this month. I registered the tour, but not the obvious that obviously it was because of a new album.

Everything at some point becomes personal - all of life, all of happenings, all of occurrences and all of everything we know. There's age + people met + experiences + things we read and it all adds up, mixes up, to these slim degrees of knowing, or at least - should of knowing. I forget more often now even as I know more things and people, and I write more things about all of this connecting and failure to connect, the mixed in ness of being a part of the human batter.

Whatever that means, like maybe it means the world is so much smaller than we originally thought when we were 18 and needed to explore it in order to find ourselves, and maybe it means that every permutation of everything you are supposed to know follows you wherever you go, or maybe you situate yourself in the same thing over and over. Maybe we know when we play house at 4 years old with the neighbor kids and assign roles and make up stories, maybe we predicted back then everything we'd strive for the rest of our lives. Maybe we agonize too much as adults over who gets to play the adult, who gets to play the baby. Maybe it's so hard now at 30-something because we don't get to just go home, have dinner waiting, have clean clothes and a mom to hold you until you fall asleep and dream of the future when we really do grow up.

But. I like being grown up because I like all the time that is already passed, I like everything that it has brought, that is has wrought; I like forgetting to wait for something I really anticipate because I'm busy doing other things and then it surprises me by coming even so. And, that's the main thing I know at 32 - even if I think I know what the world is about, I still can't predict what it will bring me - new albums, big loves, fresh opportunities, enduring friends.