"I'm jealous," my best friend who lives in southern France said a while back during one of our weekly phone calls. "You do all these things."

She had just read my blog.

I tried to explain that this was what unmarried people in their 30s do - run around, taking classes, dancing, volunteering like made . We do all these things because we are afraid to slow down.

I'm the one who's jealous, I tell her.

Michelle, my best friend since seventh-grade when I offered her my scratch-n-sniff stickers, has four beautiful children. I'm not talking physical beauty, though they are. By beautiful I mean her oldest, Adele, who shares my middle name and hugs me whenever I walk into a room. I mean her son, Louis, who calls his little sister Tess his "Monkesh" or her youngest, Noah, who won't leave his mother's side.

I mean her husband, Vincent.

One night last fall, when I was visiting Michelle, I sat on the balcony outside my room, smoking what I swore would be my last cigarette in France. The kids had just been put to bed and the house was quiet. The front door opened below me and Michelle and Vincent stepped outside to take their dog, Fiji, for a walk.

Michelle and Vincent walked to the end of the driveway. They didn't say anything but just before they turned the corner, Vincent reached out and pulled Michelle close to him and put his arm around her.