bursting at the seams

So I have been counting down the last days of my thirties. Been burning the candle at both ends, partying hearty, living large, dancing like Zorba the Greek, offending the ghost of Orwell with my cliches, and all that. And it occurred to me this morning as I was driving to work--I do some of my best thinking on the way to work, sadly it's a brief window--that I have learned something these past few weeks. It's a modest insight and probably not significant enough to justify the cost in brain cells incurred but so be it. And it's one of those small epiphanies that one could come by simply by asking a trusted friend but when it pops into the head unannounced it feels like a revelation. Put simply: I am full of shit. There's a lot going on in those five words. Much more than meets the eye. Banal on the surface to be sure. The slightly more interesting thought followed: people kind of like it. There are different ways in which one might be full of shit. And my variety is generally harmless, maybe even entertaining at times, and it helps, I think, that I am self-aware enough to recognize it. Makes it rather more palatable in comparison to the more loathsome flavors of bullshit. And it has produced benefits I think. I have expanded my circle of friends as I discovered last night. That was, to be honest, the true revelation. Interesting perhaps insofar as it runs counter to what one might expect. A good barroom anthropologist would just shake her head at my naivete but I can't help but wonder what might have been had I realized this earlier in life. But that's a useless lament and the wrong kind of bullshit. I've learned something and I aim to use it. Here's to forty pals.