Being asked for advice

More and more often these days, people come to me for advice, on issues of money management, relationships, and sundry topics. I try to meet these queries with straight face and sober application of experience. But in shallow submergence is an urge to shrug and crane my head looking for someone else with answers.

I'm happy to report that the urge stays submerged. This mastery of the WTF reflex is one of several signs of maturity I've been manifesting in the last year or so.

As a direct result, somewhere in the last 24 months or so, people have started to see me as a guy who knows where his towel is. I can think of three major things that account for this:

1. I got married, and did a good job of it. This makes it seem as though you know something.
2. The askers are generally younger, and did not know me in the near-past when I was more overtly lost and desperate.
3. I am actually sort of getting my shit together.

It's novel to grow up and fill in.

Improved bewilderment

A consistent feature of my life up to now has been a continual sense of bewilderment. That there is constantly, constantly more going on than I apprehend, or am even able to. This must say something important and dismal about my psyche.

While driving around at work the other day, considering what has changed, what I've gained in my 39 years, I realized I might have learned to be bewildered better. Not bewildered less, just better at thriving in that environment, like a microorganism you didn't know could live in a scalding geothermal vent. More grace in the flailing, less lost in the confusion.

I feel like the eventual goal is zero confusion. For now, I'm happy with what I've got.

Now we are 39

I've long hated the ambush of the passage of time. In high school, I tried to memorize my class schedule every year, period, subject, and teacher, so I would have a solid framework for reference. I wanted nothing to hang loosely in memory, to surprise or escape attention.

I don't think I retained it fully past college, but even in my early 20s, I would occasionally give it another turn, just to try to rebuild the frame. I haven't tried it in a while. Wonder if I can still pull it up?

Period	Subject	Teacher
1	Latin	??
2	P.E.	Brown
3	Band	Hood/Webb
4	English	Pearson
5	Earth Science	Coe
6	Geometry	Martin

Freshman year is enough to prove a point, I think. Not bad for a few minutes of thought and a quick refresher on HTML tables.
This is relevant because I recently turned 39. And it reminded me of when I turned 29.

At 29, I was wary of letting 30 sneak up on me. I refused to hit that milestone and reel from unexpected realization. So I spent the entire year pretending I was 30. I practiced with thoughts of deferred ambition and mortality.

It worked flawlessly. One year later, I passed the three-decade mark brow unfurrowed by existential consequence.

I was proud of my foresight and small success. Some time later though, it occurred to me that the price for my practice was a year of my life. Essentially, I had two 30s and no 29s -- I hadn't bothered to remember my class schedule for the last year of my 20s.
This is relevant because, as you may recall, I recently turned 39. And this time I've decided to let my 9er be a 9er. A time to look back and forward, but reside only in the time I have.

I am loathe to announce projects here, because most of them never happen. Nonetheless, the limb I shimmy onto now is a project for the remainder of my fast-vanishing 30s: reflection, anticipation, and appreciation for where I am. And as well as I am able, I'll post it here at QT.

It is, as I often say these days, a good time to be me. I hope to be able to talk about why that's true.