Walking to the office this morning from Grand Central is when it hit me. I was sipping my coffee, uncharacteristically looking up, seeing the city around me and remembering how I saw the place so many years ago, roaming around in yearning adolescence, distracted with curiosity, with a sordid collection of teenage delusions slung over my shoulder. I thought the streets were mine -- which seemed reasonable because I planned to do so many noteworthy things in the coming years. This was before I realized that the most extraordinary actions are taken very quietly -- face to face, or anonymously, painfully but appropriately unremarked upon. At least in this world.

I'll miss the city; I already miss the way I once regarded it. This place not mine and never was. And that's okay. I have other things to keep me busy -- tomorrow I'll catch up, finally, with Alane and the boys, a truly extraordinary circumstance that I've staked out for myself. There I can be comfortable knowing that I've more than vindicated the misplaced arrogance of my childhood.

Now if I could just do something about the misplaced arrogance that drives my mid-life efforts...