For me, age has unravelled my unhappiness. As the days pile behind me, I find myself unpeeled layer by layer, a set of nesting Russian dolls, my heart in the center. When I was younger I had a set of criteria that I thought would make me happy: a partner, my own house, a career as a writer. Decades later, I have none of these things; I am still living at the poverty level, I am alone after a relationship that didn't take, I rent a small house, I write and write and write but sell precious little. It used to bug the hell out of me.

But then, as time passed, I began to learn more things about myself. I have a gift with animals and have rescued two companion parrots, two dogs, and rehabilitated them. I can learn anything I put my mind to - anything at all. I learned to do cartwheels when I was 40! I taught myself to crochet! I took up salsa, and am a damned amazing dance partner, yo! When I let go of my criteria for happiness and figured I would be a miserable old lady with no one and nothin' in my pockets, I started to find happiness.

I may yet meet the criteria. I might meet the man who sees the eternal in my eyes, I might finish the educational process I just began this past fall and get a Real Job (instead of this barista insanity) and save enough to buy a little cottage, I might write the Next Great American Zombie Novel. Hell, who knows what might happen?! But today, I can put on some great Latin music and dance like crazy, I can make you a gorgeous winter scarf, I can cook you the best green chile you've ever had. And somehow, that has become enough. But only because of time, time, time, the roll of wind across the dead prairie, the millions of footsteps in my wake.