I walk each morning to a coworking space. I can see mountains from my desk. The snow line creeps towards town.

I come home for lunch. Put on my slippers, heat up some soup, make a cup of coffee. It's divine.

I set up a room in the basement as a yoga room. It's empty save for a yoga mat and a foam block. I enter that room a fog of work stress and leave it relaxed, calm, and centered. A washing machine for my brain.

I ride my old mountain bike around town, to the hardware store, to the post office, to the grocery store. I run into people I know. Which makes me feel very happy. People are happy here. It's a good place to live.

I get invited to the coworking space Christmas party. I dawdle at home, arriving a half hour late, stressing about socializing. I tell myself that I only need to go for an hour.

I'm still there four hours later. I walk up to women and start talking to them. I feel good here, at home, relaxed, like I belong. I'm a part of all of this.

The party starts to thin. I pass by a guy, and he asks if I want to go for cocktails with him and a few others. I say no. And then I say yes.

We sit at the bar and watch the bartender burn shreds of wood for a smoked negroni. My bourbon sour arrives with a sprig of rosemary and in cut crystal. I'm sitting there with this strange mix of people - a Scottish electrical engineer, an American webmarketer, and an Irish charity fundraiser. They talk endlessly of mountain biking and of where they're going skiing in the morning.

The engineer is beside me. We'd discovered a series of mutual acquaintances when we met a month ago. He's intense and fit and wry, salt and pepper hair.

I gesture about something, and place my hands on the bar to demonstrate the size of something, like two karate chops. The Scot grabs one of my hands and places it further away from the other, correcting the distance. It happens so quickly, in the midst of flirty rapport.

He touched my hand.

I reel with emotions. He is attractive and so so smart and he acts really interested and friendly... and he touched my hand. A man with greying hair is flirting with me, and it's not creepy. I realize my age - the woman from Montana has smile lines around her eyes. The realization that my social sphere has shifted dramatically.

I get invited to go mountain biking with women.

I learn how to adjust ski bindings.

I plunge the kitchen sink.

I ride my bike down a gravel lane, looking at the rear of a house that's for sale. Huge sash windows, a fruit tree in the yard. The view to the mountains is perfection. I imagine diapers on the clothes line. A shiver down my spine.

Daniel and I sit in our friends hot tub. They're away for the weekend. He tells me that he likes my new bikini. That he likes how my body has shifted now that I have my period back, that I look lean yet soft, if that makes any sense. He slides up next to me. I swig from his beer.

Snow blows sideways. The damp ends of my hair freeze.