YOUTH

I've been sort of obsessed lately with a shift I've felt in the last year. Suddenly, I just feel older than I did before. Does this happen to everyone in their early thirties?

I noticed it especially this fall when I ran the Twin Cities Marathon. Last time I ran that in 2002, people cheered for me and Jamie by saying, "Go girls!" and "You look awesome, girls!"

This time, people said, "Okay, ladies!" "Keep it going, ladies!"

YEARNING

This morning, I met one of Mary's friends from the Peace Corps. He's moving anywhere in the United States he gets a job, which surprised me because didn't his family die from missing him so much and feel like chaining him in their house?

No, he said.

"I missed Mary so much that every moment was filled with sadness," I said, exaggerating only slightly.

"Yes," Mary said. "You wrote COME HOME NOW! and DON'T EXTEND! in all caps in every letter."

"You DID?!" asked her friend

I did. I never expected her to do those things, but every time I wrote a letter I just wished I was talking to her in person so much. That was probably selfish of me. I also wrote in my letters that I knew she wouldn't come home and that I was proud of her for doing all that good work with malaria nets and health care for nine villages.