superficiel in depth

It's my birthday today. I'm 32. I had a very nice party yesterday at my home, it was supposed to be under the sign of the "Zen", meaning informal as we face the nightmare before xmas of stress, pressure, winter blues and other new year's considerations of the year that passed and the hopes for the year to come. The party started with nice delicacies I got from the Lafayette Gourmet with few people discussing over foie gras and bottles of Coteaux du Layon and as more people joined after their own dinners, the mood shifted to dance craving. We ended up dancing and provocating our neighboors with an unplanned disco playlist, 8 of us left until shortly before 4am, with Anne teaching us the Madison on Just an Illusion by Imagination. I guess I needed something like that and my friends too.
Maybe it's the party aftermath of drinking and sleep depravation, or just the b-day effect, but I feel now a bit melancholic. Many of my friends are facing difficult times, due mostly to serious sickness in their families, some could not attend the party yesterday because of that, others came anyway to be distracted and it brings me down to see them suffering so much. I also just finished to read "Everyman" by Philip Roth whose story about death, illness and aging is quite disturbing all the more because it's told with great beauty and subtlety.
I feel priviledged to be able to write about these feelings in this tribune and I look forward to be more challenged as life goes on to maintain the right balance between superficiality and depth.

--Joelle