I’m on the precipice of 40, navigating a career change, unsure of what the next career actually is, and raising a child who has begun puberty.

This isn’t a mid-life crisis. I plan to live to 105. This is a season of wandering and discovery and growing…out and away from the old operating system that screams, “Get your shit together.”

Community is something I’ve always desired but it hasn’t blossomed into reality the way I imagined. That’s why I’m here. There’s something so satisfying about the moment when two minds meet and acknowledge the others’ existence. Go a step beyond that and we’re nodding our heads about something we both have experienced. It doesn’t matter if the experience is identical or lightyears away from the other. We still nod together.

I hope to be a good friend in this. I don’t really like most people but you’re not most people. This isn’t about me, not exactly. Or you. I’d like this to be about us. I imagine there’s a big us out there, waiting to be connected like the links in a chain that glisten in the light. Or, as you expected me to write, like puzzle pieces.