Even if you’re a bit of a clown like I am, there are moments that force you to recognize — with striking, biting, bang-at-your-bones clarity — the nonsense you’ve spent this one precious life stressing over and participating in; every absolute inane rumination you’ve indulged; all the time you’ll never get back when you allowed truly the most meaningless shit to drive your emotional and existential bus.

If you’ve been lucky enough to live even part of this life frivolously, you’ve probably spent at least some of that time creating problems where there were no real problems, catastrophizing minor inconveniences, simply living in the emotional upside down when you often could have, with resources in your control, felt the sturdy light of the right side up. This is often the greatest privilege of “normal” — we use it to be stupid and complain.

I started this post on December 30th, just before experiencing one of those perspective-illuminating moments. Seventeen emotionally harrowing days later, after working my way through a distinctly not-for public-consumption crisis (we’re all thankfully OK), writing about defining one’s getting-older style seems absolutely asinine.

But these Substack woods are not so deep. I have 200 tabs about sweaters open, a posting cadence to meet and paid subscribers to keep. So here goes.