What did you tell yourself you would never do? Only to realize, years later, as an old coot, that you’d gone ahead and done it? Or become it?

I’m curious.

I’m pushing 42 here. I’m hoping this age really is the answer to everything. I’ve already accumulated plenty of towels, AND I generally wait for other people to tell me when to panic. I must be on the right track.

As my birthday approaches, I find myself waxing a teensy bit nostalgic, a teensy bit regretful, and a whole lotta oh my dear Lord how did that happen?

I told myself I wasn’t a cat person.

I swore I’d never get divorced.

I predicted I’d have two boys.

I said Southern California was the last place on earth I’d ever want to visit, let alone live in.

I yawned at the entire continent of Asia.

Fast-forward to 2012, as I type these words with a massive lump of black cat nestled in my lap like a nursing babe. The tortoiseshell, meanwhile, stalks a spider across the room. I sit in the room I once shared with a husband, a man I believed I could not live without, would not ever live without. I’m breathing just fine, and so is he, somewhere across town. In two hours, I will pick up our two daughters from school and head to Wal-Mart in search of pink posterboard. Later, when the house of girls and cats and dogs is finally quiet, I will catch up with a man in San Diego, a funny, sweet, half-Japanese 3D artist whose grandfather lives in the heart of Tokyo. I’ll be back in San Diego next month (just like the month before, and the one before that), when we will shop for chairs at Ikea and go surfing and ponder a someday-trip to visit his family in Japan.

Busted.

Life has a fab sense of humor.

So what’s your punchline?

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