So Geez. The weekend is wide open. Except for a Softball Banquet and Awards Ceremony at the Eagle tomorrow night. What an odd thing a weekend is. It's Friday night, and it seems to be stretching out in front of me like a newly discovered continent. At some point on Sunday afternoon, I'll feel the icy hand of back-to-work-tomorrow get a firm grip on my spine.

Huh. There's an autumnal coolness in the air. And I'm starting to feel like I always do this time of year: meditative and wistful. On October 29th, I'll have attained my 38th year. I always get this way around my birthday. "At my back I always hear/Time's winged chariots drawing near."

I want a second chance at 33. What the hell is that supposed to mean? Well, I'll tell you. When I was in college, we were discussing Joyce's Ulysses in my Modern Novel class. Stephen Daedalus is 33 at the time of the action. Beth DeMeo, the prof, pointed out that 33 is a significant age in literature. Stephen is 33. Christ died at the age of 33. Hamlet was 33. In medieval thought, everyone would be 33 years old in heaven, regardless of their age at death. At 33, the fires of youth--the sense of assurance and optimism and wonder--are still burning. But, at 33 your own mortality--the fact that you will die and be forgotten, shuffling off this mortal coil--enters your consciousness in a big way. To the extent that I understand Heidegger (which is minimal), this is what starts Dasein on his way to Authenticity, the confrontation with nothingness. So 33 is like the tip of the mountain. Literally, the prime of life.

Now, don't get me wrong. Good things happened when I was thirty-three. Five years ago tonight, I was most likely sitting at my desk, typing away, just like I am now. But my desk was in a room over a liquor store on Cypress Avenue in the South Bronx. I was the coordinator of a network of needle exchange programs operating across New York State. I didn't know at that point that I really only had two and a half more months at that job. I was starting to embark on a major lobbying campaign up in Albany. I was really, really happy about the fact that once the Legislature was back in session I'd be spending a lot of time in Albany. Because Albany wasn't home.

My Ex and I were looking at houses, hoping for one to buy. We were living in Boerum Hill, a nice brownstone neighborhood in Brooklyn. We hadn't yet seen the house we were going to buy, located in Lefferts Manor, another neighborhood in Brooklyn. We were buying a house, it seems to me, the way heterosexual couples (wrongly) have children: to save the relationship. Again and again we would do something (move in together, move to Brooklyn together, buy a house together) to shackle ourselves more tightly to oneanother.

Five years ago, I was probably late at the office. Not because I had bunches of work to do, but because home was a place I tried to avoid. The binding wasn't working too well. My fantasy life was fairly rich. My fantasies were played out on America On Line. (I know. How pathetic is that?) I'd connect with some guy. Usually some guy with a mention of S/M in his profile. I'd work up to the point where he'd say 'Okay, let's meet,' and then I would present some excuse why I couldn't. Some of them were legit, most weren't. I just cringe thinking of my Walter Mitty self back then. Whining and moaning my way through therapy sessions every Thursday night.

During my 33rd year, we found a house, put in an offer, went into contract, I switched jobs and came here to my current job, we got approved for a mortgage, we closed on the house and moved in, we were featured in the Habitats column of the Real Estate section in the Sunday New York Times. At home, it was bicker, bicker, bicker. Mostly me getting yelled at for one thing or another. There were a lot of fights that first year on Lincoln Road. And, I came back from a meeting in December, 1997 where I was offered the job here and greeted at the door by my Ex. He told me that my sister was in the hospital. The doctors weren't giving her a lot of hope. She survived, miraculously, and would live for 19 more months. I visited her when I could, and each visit was an occasion for an blow-out with my Ex.

So that was my 33rd year. The year I had been 'looking forward to' since my Junior year at college. Truly I feel that I missed it. That it went by me. Why? Because I wasn't myself. I wasn't myself at all.

Now, I feel much more myself. I do what I want. I am who I am. I stand or fall on my own decisions. I take responsibility. I'm a person. People know me and like me. I'm meeting new people and forging new friendships. I'm learning new things. I'm dating a great guy. I'm in love for the first time in my life.

I think I'll go home and read the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. In response to an email I sent out to professional colleagues announcing my departure from my current job, I got an email back quoting a portion of it...

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ³Do I dare?² and, ³Do I dare?²
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair‹
[They will say: ³How his hair is growing thin!²]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin‹
[They will say: ³But how his arms and legs are thin!²]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

I remember the part of the poem (and I'm bad at memorizing poetry, I always get it wrong) that goes:

Do I dare eat a peach?
Or wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach?
For I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
And I wonder, will they sing for me?
(something something something)
(something about frolicking with the mermaids in their sea chambers)
Till human voices wake us and we drown.
Let me find a link to the poem. See how close I came. Here it is. Huh. I didn't do too bad. Just left out a couple images. And Prufrock doubts the mermaids will sing to him, not wonders if they will.