I'm Gretchen Ruben and this is a little happier.

I love aphorisms, proverbs, coons, fables, and any kind of teaching story.

And with those, I've collected my secrets of adulthood.

These are the lessons I've learned through time and experience, usually the hard way.

I have a huge collection of these secrets of adulthood.

In fact, if you have any of your own favorites, please send them my way.

I'm thinking of making a book of them.

One of my favorite secrets of adulthood is the opposite of a profound truth is also true.

This is a mysterious and powerful aspect of human nature.

I want to accept myself and expect more from myself.

I want to think about myself so I can forget about myself.

I want to use my time efficiently and I also want to take time to wander and play.

An aspect of this secret of adulthood is the ancient idea that sometimes something

goes so far in one direction that it circles back on itself and a kind of union of opposites.

Because I've thought a lot about this, I was struck by a particular passage from the

essay, American Goff, from the collection Take the Canoli by American historian, social

observer, and writer Sarah Vowell.

In it, Vowell is describing her encounter with Goff.

She writes, Goths, for those unfamiliar with this particular subculture, are the pale-faced

black-clad vampiric types with four Lauren Stairs framed by raccoon eye makeup.

The name derives, of course, from Gothic, a style according to my dictionary, emphasizing

the grotesque, mysterious, and desolate.

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