Work has taken me lately to outlying county seats, places with names like Claxton and Reidsville and Ludowici. To enter courthouses now, one must pass through security stations — usually a deputy and magnetometer. In my home courts, I breeze right through. But in the smaller towns, no one seems to gather that I am an attorney, despite the fact that I am wearing a suit and usually holding an overflowing file. “Who do you work for?,” I get asked. And I respond, “Well, me. I work for me.” This never seems to answer the deputies’ questions, but I eventually make it into the courtrooms.

In Ludowici last month, the deputy spared me the questions and let me in. I was pleasantly surprised and sort of relieved, and I decided to thank him on my way out. But he stopped me first and told me that he was sorry; he had no idea that I was an attorney. I missed a golden opportunity to ask him what he thought I was, and I said instead, “That’s okay. With the glasses, most people think I’m a teacher or a librarian.” We chatted for a moment, and I left, and as I cranked up the car I thought about how librarians weren’t exactly what they used to be.

If you remember librarians as older women with blue hair rinses and lingering cat hairs clinging to their cardigans, think again. I recently read “The Library Book” by Susan Orleans, which is largely about an unsolved 1985 arson that nearly destroyed the main branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. My friend Jessica insists that most non-fiction books could be successfully distilled into an extended-length magazine article, and this one proved her point. While the book was interesting, it seemed to need more information to justify its existence as a book. So the plot line sent tentacles into L.A.’s historic preservation moment, which the library fire spawned; the changing role of libraries themselves from inception (where they were populated by men, with almost exclusively male librarians) to its current iteration (where L.A. just hired a full-time social worker to help the homeless population, which often lingers at the library); and the national pivot from a book-based culture to one obsessed with electronics. And overseeing it all was the new breed of librarians themselves, often young, tattooed, and pierced.

I saw this new breed of librarian in February, when I convinced my friend Sharon to join me at a continuing education seminar run by librarians. The seminar was largely forgettable, except for stoking the fire of my fears that technology is beginning to pass me by. I thought of my mother, who recently switched to a cell phone that she has no idea how to answer. To be fair, she manages sometimes, but mostly she elects to call me back at the least convenient time. (I have noticed that this whole “least convenient time” is a practice creeping into my own parenting.)

But in the midst of learning at the seminar that I was clearly on the wrong side of the information gap, my own phone silently vibrated at what was a very convenient time: It allowed me to stride confidently out of the room for a moment, thereby avoiding a few minutes of a presentation about cataloging governmental documents. With the purpose in my stride at that moment. you would have thought that I was about to single-handedly deploy all 27 years of my legal acumen to save the entire free world. You would have been wrong, for as I saw the caller ID, I realized that the call was from the agency from which Chris and I had rented a beach house for the last seven years. And when I saw the number on the screen, I knew that this year’s vacation was about to be ruined.

Chris and I began renting a little cottage in Saint Simons Island, right on the beach, at a time when our marriage seemed to be overwhelmed by children and work and the unhappiness that accompanies one’s mid-40s. Those were bad days. I remember the nagging feeling that if one of us just struck a match, then the whole thing would burn straight to the ground. We began renting Beachview to remember why we liked each other, and through the years, with the lack of other responsibilities and with plenty of time staring at the ocean from the shade of the back porch in the heat of the day, we alternated bouts of silence with talks about growing old together and plenty of books, painting, and snacks.

Last year was nearly perfect. We had clawed our way up to the week of the Fourth of July. There were fireworks. We danced to a funk band on the lighthouse lawn. We had packing down to a science, knowing exactly what to leave at home. Even better, the unhappiness had passed. There were no matches to strike. And we talked about Beachview itself: who owned it, and why it was rented at a below-market rate, and whether this would be the year that the entire bathroom floor finally collapsed, probably with me standing on it. I even painted a picture of Beachview as a souvenir:

After the diagnosis came down, I wrote a new will, instructing my children to trespass discreetly to scatter a few of my ashes there.

So the call in February was an unwelcome one. The rental agency began by telling me that I was the last person it had called because they all knew how I felt about the place. But Beachview had sold, for the owners had divorced. (If I had known about their marital difficulties, I would have gladly sprung for counseling.) It was gone, and the rental agency placed us in a cottage not on the ocean, but on Ocean Boulevard, which despite its tranquil name is a busy street. This year I sat on the screened porch watching not the waves, but passing traffic.

The best thing I saw from that perch was a golf cart on the Fourth of July. The driver — a red, white, and blue-attired husband — had constructed an Uncle Sam hat to sit on top, and with “Yankee Doodle Dandy” playing on tin speakers and bubbles swarming extravagantly from a machine in back, he appeared in his element with the patriotic bunting and streamers floating about him. His wife looked like she had never been more embarrassed, and at that moment, I loved the whole institution of marriage more than ever. I have been meditating since January, and one of the tools that the app has suggested is to view thoughts simply as cars that pass on the road. Don’t engage; just view. When confronted with a particularly thorny thought, I now think of that golf cart and watch it pass, trailing bubbles and patriotism behind it.

But the golf cart wasn’t enough, and we left the vacation early. It was there that I felt the evaporation of the structural integrity of my stiff upper lip. Like the rest of this whole stinking year, I found myself in a place that I was not supposed to be. My birthday is tomorrow, and on that day a year ago, I remember thinking to myself that it would be a wonderfully memorable year. I was partially right — it certainly was memorable — but staring down this birthday, I feel less sure-footed than ever, especially in the “who am I?” and “what am I supposed to be?” categories.

And so I found myself at Pilates class on Saturday morning. My favorite instructor called me “birthday girl” before class began. At the end of class, she told the room that we needed to sing to the two birthday girls, Kim and Ashley, and as she said it, she gestured to my immediate left. Kim, whom I know, sat two spaces down from me, so I assumed that Ashley sat between us. And I could see where singing to “Kim, Ashley, and Amy Lee” would be simply too much.

I grew up Southern Baptist, and Chris swears that you have to pass a vocal test to join any congregation worth its salt. (He grew up Episcopalian, home of small choirs and hymns that bear with legend “with great solemnity.”) So with my loud and exuberant voice, I gave it my alto-all in singing to Kim and Ashley. And when the song was over, I turned to the woman next to me and said, “Happy birthday, Ashley!” And she replied, “It’s not my birthday. And I’m not Ashley.”

Then it dawned on me: I was Ashley, even though I am not.

And so begins my new year.

I have been unnaturally subdued about my birthday this year, a day that I have always viewed as a high holy day on my personal calendar. There has been no countdown clock for the last month, no ham-handed gift suggestions, no squeals in endless contemplation of cake and ice cream and culinary excess.

But there is hope. In bed last night, I nudged Chris and said, “Do you know what tomorrow is?” He said he did not. So I reminded him that it was birthday eve. He leaned over, kissed me on the forehead, and said, “There’s my girl.” I have that, and I have the joy of turning another year older, and I have (I hope) time to answer all the questions that I ask about myself. I have learned better than to ask for a big year because sometimes those things can be overrated. My birthday goal is to make it out of this year with all of my current internal organs, whether vestigial or full-blown, intact. It is a small goal, but it is mine, and if at this time next year I still have a gallbladder and a spleen, I will have won the lottery.

ALC