Forty is the new WTF???

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This post is alot more "essay-ey" than I've been waxing of late, mostly onna counta there's finally room in my brain to think about things other than cutting out and gluing really pretty shapes onto thousands of wedding programs but also because I was re-reading some of my older stuff and I realized i used to actually talk about what was going on in my head as opposed to in my life a lot more. Not sure if it's going to continue in this vein but for now, there it is.....
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O.K. so i was chatting with a friend of mine today and I found myself uttering the following statement: "Come to Japan to check out your show? Sure! That'd be awesome!" Thing is, I don't think it would be "awesome"... what it would be is impossible. Impossible because I am JUST back from my honeymoon trip to Mexico which used up all the vacation time (and then some) I'd managed to amass in the (relatively) short time I've spent at my brand-new job; impossible because I have TWO kids and a Wife who, granted, were included in the initial offer of tickets but whom I'm relatively sure would rather not get bundled back onto a plane and flown half-way across the world to a place where NONE of us speaks the local language (Oy vey, i'm sitting here imagining The Wife trying to get a handle on ordering those "cheesburgers, plain" en Japonese -- seriously, I have no doubt that she could do it, just not so sure she'd think her on-going relationship with me was particularly worth the effort) just to watch some grungy types pummel things with their skateboards. Impossible because, I actually don't want to do stuff like that anymore. I like where i am and what I'm doing. I think I'm just having a little identity crisis is all.

"What???" I hear your collective gasp. "Our little Chick? Arguably one of the happiest, most self-actualized, stable human beings on the planet? Having some sort of crisis? Pass the peanuts, this should be good." Because, here's the thing, saying something like that in response to an offer like that is something I would have wanted to do (albeit, possibly not actually followed through on) a bunch of years ago, pre-kids, pre-wife, in another incarnation of myself.

"So, then," I now hear you murmuring, "Tell us again, how this any different than your standard run-of-the-mill, mid-life crisis?" Well, I think it's different because I'm not actually running away. From anything or to anything. I'm content here. I'm taking my responsibilities and commitments and loves-of-my-life very seriously. I'm extraordinarily happy. I'm just finding myself acting and feeling and in some ways looking completely different from how I've sort of been for the last decade and i'm wondering what's up with that.

Part of me thinks it's this whole marriage thing. I mean, there was a pretty significant sea-change popping up pretty much out of nowhere and while I feel extra-lucky that everything worked to make such a permanent locking down of the Missus a reality, there was also a fair amount of seismic shift from one extreme to the other that went into fully embracing the concept.

Kind of like deciding at age 29 that having a baby was a really. good. idea. versus my earlier "Are you frickin' kidding me??!" stance vis a vis me and my up until then anti-child-rearing or even child-be-nearing stance... In fact, it feels just like that. Major decision arrived at. Attitudes adjusted accordingly then total and complete loss as to what exactly that looks like in actual practice. I mean, who am I now that I'm a grown-up, college-educated, wife and mother of two with a house in a "nice neighborhood", a dog and (theoretically) half a mortgage. I have the "advanced" degree, the white-collar job, the close circle of "a few good friends"; I worry about getting folks to school, whether or not the truck is going to die, when The Wife will get fed up with my choosing sleep over sex (which does actually happen occasionally and is inexplicable even to ME as, seriously, The Wife is HOT!) and leave me for her secretary or admin ass or whatever.... all stuff that everyone of a certain age, in a certain bracket/frame of mind thinks about, I'm sure just...

Again, please don't misunderstand. I LIKE it here. The weather is great and the perks are awesome. I'm just not sure how I ended up here with the rest of the crowd and, more importantly what I'm supposed to be doing now that I'm "one of them".

Anyone?

[Note: Any and all suggestions will be duly considered in the order in which they are received. Thank you for your attention.]