Woulda, shoulda, coulda

I'm going to be 37 on Tuesday, and this morning I found a white hair in my eyebrow. I've been pulling white hairs out of my head for a while. Even now, there are some up there, mocking me as they bust through the dye. The eyebrow thing, however, is a relatively new thing. But it's a reminder that I am farther along on the fast track to 40, and it made me, I guess nostalgic would be the word.

40 seems so old. I don't feel like I should be three years away from it. I don't feel 37. I know that, thanks to good genes and a vampire-like aversion to laying in the sun, I don't look 37. I usually get 28 or 30.

I know, you're only as old as you feel, or whatever bullshit people like to put on cards or coffee mugs. I should only be 28 or 30. Shouldn't I have accomplished more by now? Shouldn't I have more to show for 37 years than a Honda, a rented apartment and a new sofa?

Maybe I should have gone to New York City after college. I could be a high-level editor of a national magazine, living a fabulously glamorous life. One of those editors they get on the Today Show to comment about things. Or, I could have gone there, not been able to find a job and headed back to Bingo-town with my tail between my legs, ending up working at the Press & Sun-Bulletin, writing stories about the Spiedie Fest and the Crappy Derby.

The first thing people who I haven't spoken to in a while ask me, after they ask about my health, is if I'm dating someone. When I say no, I get the sad sigh. I recognize it, because I do it so often myself. I live with a cat. That's it. I've kissed a lot of boys. I've even been in love a couple times. But at 37, I live with a cat.

The path of my "love" life is pretty flat. Some ups, downs, sunshine, rain and all those other cliches about cows, free milk and more fish in the sea. Maybe I shouldn't have kissed so many boys, or maybe kissed different ones. Maybe there was a time or two when I should have looked at who was in front of me instead of who was behind me. Or maybe I could see that they were grounded where they were, and I had other places to see.

But, if something or someone had "worked out," I probably wouldn't have been able to take the job that I have now. I had to move to a different city. A much easier choice to make when I was the only one who had to make it. And I love this new job. I am afraid to say it's the job I've been looking for this whole time.

So I've stood at forks and made choices. It's hard sometimes not to look back at roads not taken to wonder what could have been or what should have been. The roads I have taken have brought me to what is. White hairs in my eyebrows and all.