I am 34 and I keep thinking about how my opinions would have been… incompatible. (Too loud, probably.) Now I just smile at Mrs. Henderson’s perfectly sculpted hydrangeas and agree with Mark about the new HOA rules, and the emptiness gets a little bigger, a cold spot expanding somewhere behind my sternum. Each potluck, each community bake sale, it’s like a quiet surrender, another layer of this pleasant, agreeable woman I’ve become. Is it just me? (It *can't* be just me.) Sometimes I wonder if it’s more noticeable than I think, this… hollowness, like a cavity you can almost taste.