This is what sexism does best: it makes you feel crazy for desiring parity and hopeless about ever achieving it.

My husband and I were born three weeks apart, and our plan had always been to throw a joint party for our 40th birthdays.

I loved to press the shutter, to freeze time, to turn little slices of life into rectangle rife with metaphor.

Id always assumed that by 40 Id have at least a modicum of stability - a steady income, an established career, a bountiful fullness, like a pillow into which I could sink as I entered the second half of my life.

It's 2013 ... The Time's obituary for Yvonne Brill, renowned rocket scientist, winner of the National Medal of Technology and Innovations, leads with, 'She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job and took eight years off from work to raise three children. "The world's best mom," her son Matthew said.

I do miss the excitement of seeing history up close, of having intimate knowledge, through direct experience, of what happens when people and governments clash, but I do not miss the danger or the constant displacement.

Born in 1966, I came of age at the dawn of a revolution. The past was gone; we would move on and get over it!