I stand in a sea of flannel—couples in their thirties, wrapped up against the New England cold, sipping local hazy IPAs, are paired off and standing back to chest with each other, slowly swaying in time with the music. It’s a hipster haven in here, and I was not told the dress code—I’m standing with my friend, wearing a spaghetti strap tank top, glitter slicked on my eyes and a hard-won gin & tonic sweating down my hand.

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       Every time I jump along to a song, I get strange stares from the couples around me for interrupting their swaying rhythm, and the venue feels like a liminal space: the air crawls over my skin and raises my hair, the music rings through my ears and I can taste it on my tongue. I woke up with laryngitis a couple days before, so my voice is lost in the din of my surroundings.

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       Maybe the reason this moment is so impactful to me is that I cannot voice what I’m thinking, can’t let my words float off into the air and disappear from my head—I am trapped in my own mind, forced to sit with what is poking at me.

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       What’s poking at me is what my friend calls The Little Life, that moment when you realize that your home is perfectly cozy, you drink tea every night before bed and fall asleep well before midnight. The Little Life usually comes in your early thirties, once you have a stable job and a dog you picked up from the pound that you dote on more than you should.

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       Those who live The Little Life only drink a glass of rosé occasionally, probably while they’re sitting curled up on the squishiest couch ever and watching the crackling fire in their hearth light up the room. They might reminisce on the days when they used to drink shitty liquor out of stolen plastic cups and dance under blacklights, but they don’t miss it. I am standing in a sea of people that are living The Little Life.

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       The people around me shimmer, cast in a striking yellow by the stage lights, and I am jealous of them. I am halfway stuck in the stream of a sole blue light that makes my skin look ghostly and reflective—I am not quite there, not able to scream and make myself known.

       The couple next to me laughs together, her ear tilted up to his mouth, engaging in their own secret moment. One couple gets brought on stage to sing along to their wedding song, and people in the crowd cheer them on with vigor: the woman’s voice isn’t very good, but she’s so happy that it is the best rendition of the song I’ve ever heard. I can see my life stretching out in front of me, the possibility that in ten years I could be one of these flannelled tricenarians, having made room in my life for someone else to live it with me.

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       I want this Little Life that they have so badly I can feel it in my jaw and the furrow of my eyebrows, so instead I ignore the people around me in favor of watching the band play their mandolin-heavy songs.

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       I wonder if they all managed to make their own Little Lives, if they have kids at home.