Today is my birthday. I am now 34.
I welcome my birthday much like people welcome the plague. While I pretend to enjoy the new internal struggles of ‘oh fuck, now I’m 34 and still haven’t made any progress towards what I really want to do with my life,’ I also pretend to enjoy questions about myself and my birthday plans. I deflect.
It’s a strange thing…attention. It makes me slightly uncomfortable when it’s something I don’t have any control over. Birthday? I didn’t do anything to get praise for that. It just happened one day. It happened to my mom, mostly. I may have been 10 pounds and it may have been painful. Work hard and try to make something of your life? Meh…everyone does that, right?
I have no significant birthday plans. It’s -5 degrees outside right now. Plans? Really? I’m wearing two scarves for crying out loud! It’s a double scarf birthday!
As I reflect on my past year and sketch out a new framework for this coming 34th year, I try to remember all the things I used to want… the things that I told myself I wouldn’t forget to do when I got a little older. Maybe most of them are unachievable. But maybe they’re not! Good lord, I hope they’re not….
