Touching the Mask

Loved this piece in Poets and Writers by Kamilah Aisha Moon, especially this part:

So much of one’s character and spirit can be revealed in the smallest of gestures, gleaned from our choices. This scenario has played out in my life again and again, a hallmark of the way I’ve moved through experience after experience thus far. The decisions to move from city to city, building from the ground up in strange towns and new jobs, with someone and alone. The willingness to try and often fail at new things and travel solo abroad. The decision to put my writing first and leave a good career to move to New York for graduate school, despite considerable odds.

Reminds me both of my own constant balance and re-balancing acts and a passage from one of my husband's favorite Vonnegut books, Mother Night:

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

I could wax philosophical, but I have work still to do, so I'll just say that one of the most fascinating things about growing older is having more of life to look back on, a broader tapestry in which to find patterns.