At thirty-eight I had run the numbers on my social situation,
And arrived at a fairly settled and reduced estimation,
A handful of good people in a comfortable rotation,
And a largely predictable and satisfactory station.
Then I said yes to something I would normally have passed,
A dinner with an adjacent group that I had not yet massed
Enough history with to feel the evening well-insured,
And it turned out to be the first of several doors procured.
The social life I didn’t expect to have arrived in the side door,
Past forty, when I thought the inventory was at its floor,
New people with new rooms and new conversations waiting,
The social life I didn’t expect to have keeps accumulating.
I am not saying it is large, the word large is not right,
But it is richer than I thought the situation would be at this height,
Richer in the sense of depth and the quality of the new,
People who arrived with interests and perspectives I never knew.
I have a buddy now who is fifteen years older than me,
A friendship that would not have existed if I hadn’t agreed
To show up to the thing I would have normally declined,
A whole other human I would have left behind.
I think what changed was a small recalibration in the willingness,
A marginal lowering of the threshold for the social business,
Not a personality transplant, not a fundamental shift,
Just a small and incremental opening that gave the thing a lift.
The social life at any age is partly what you come with,
And partly what you let in at the edges of the fixed myth
Of who you think you are and what you think you need around,
The social life I didn’t expect to have is the best one I have found.