Feel free to skip ahead to next weeks post which involves discussions of stalkers...FUN!!!
My birthday is this week, and I have mixed feelings. Mostly shitty feelings.
For a long time I just ignored my birthday. This was easy to do as it is associated with a major U.S. holiday thus lending itself to being overlooked by others in favor of celebrating the anniversary of the birth of this here U.S. of A.
Goddamn America is ALWAYS upstaging me.
But, I suppose, when there are fireworks, whole CNN news threads and entire magazine issues devoted to the fancy bar-b-q's and table decorations and red-white-and-blue Jello molds one should have on said anniversary of a country's birth, it's easy to overlook the anniversary of someone pushing an actual human fetus out of their vagina.
Normally, I'm excited to share my birthday with America's. I typically tell those close to me what I expect, so that I will not be disappointed. I buy cheesy July 4th paraphernalia and force my nieces & nephew to wear it whilst accompanying me to the local 4th of July parade.
Examples:
But this year...I find myself feeling nostalgic. Lonely.
Wishing that THIS year's birthday would be special and not just because its shared with "America", but rather because I am important.
Loved.
Special.
As per usual, I'll probably end up ordering my own cake & demanding people eat it with me.
This year I'm telling everyone I'm 27 (only because I've been "23" for so long that people are beginning to catch on).
I will not reveal my actual age, mostly because I don't look my age thankyouinfantbabyjesus.
This comes from my mother's side, I think. At 67 y/o my mom has a head full of white hair (which is cut periodically by whomever is nearest-no joke, just last week she presented me with a pair of kitchen shears and asked me to "cut an inch or two off the bottom") and is majorly in need of a wardrobe update, but her FACE looks at least 20 years younger than she actually is. Her skin is surreal and I hate her for it.
The problem for me is that my life is no where close to what I imagined it would be when I was a wee thing day dreaming about where I'd be at my current age.
Hello Captain Obvious.
Is it just me or did people in their 30's seem so OLD when you were a kid?
Did any of you watch the TV sitcom 'Roseanne'? On that show the main character, Roseanne (a woman married w/ 4 kids), had a younger sister named Jackie. Jackie was portrayed as a bit of a drifter-a woman in her 30's who still lived in a slip-shod studio apartment over a garage and who regularly stopped by Roseanne's to steal peanut butter/grocery shop for food and to do her laundry for free, and who had loser boyfriend after loser boyfriend cycling through like clockwork every few episodes. Jackie is alternately a truck driver, a shampoo girl at a salon or a waitress-depending on the season/episode.
I remember thinking how OLD Jackie was to be still grocery shopping out of her sister's pantry and to be using her sister's washing machine to clean her clothes.
Eventually Jackie got pregnant and married (in that order) and it seemed like a real big deal on the show. It was as though we should all rejoice. FINALLY the beleaguered, long "single" sister, Jackie, was starting a family.
Truth be told, Jackie was on the fence about marrying her baby daddy-remember that? She wasn't 'in love', and wasn't convinced that he was 'the one', but Roseanne encouraged her. It seemed to me that everyone (mostly Roseanne) was relieved. It was like, finally Jackie found a semi-decent man to knock her up and then marry her after ALL THOSE LOSERS, so she should jump on it because after all she is OLD already and life is passing her by.
Or, at least, that's how it seemed to me.
The truth is, Jackie's "pregnant and getting married" character is just about the age I am now and, frankly, I don't feel as old as I thought Jackie was. But fifteen years ago?
Wow.
Jackie seemed SO very old.
I distinctly remember feeling sorry for Jackie. Poor Jackie, I thought. She just wanted what all of us want, right?
True love.
Isn't that the 'American Dream'?
To find a meaningful career, have a husband, child, white-pickett-fence...love.
But, despite her best efforts, Jackie SUCKED at all of the above.
Poor Jackie.
Now I look back and think, Holy sh*tballs. I am Jackie.
I am that age. I still 'grocery shop' at my sister's house, do my laundry at my parents house (hell, I live at my parents house) and I too suck at men. I too want the 'American Dream'-a meaningful career, husband, child and at least a fence of some sort if not made of white picketts (whatever that is).
Mostly, just love, really.
I am not even sure I could say exactly what I anticipated my life would look like at this age when I was a kid, but I can confidently say that it most definitely did NOT involve living in the same bedroom I occupied from birth-18 years old. At the very least, I probably imagined fiscal solvency, owning my own home, aaaaand not having tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt....ooooorr something like that.
Everyone keeps telling me to cut myself some slack. We are in "hard times" in this country in general, they say. LOTS of 30-ish something-or-others are in my same position, they say.
That does not make me feel better.
Shaking myself free of the stereotypes I assumed as a child is proving a little more difficult than I anticipated.
Such as that I was supposed to meet 'Mr. Right' in college, after graduation I would marry said 'Mr. Right', we would buy a home together and I would then pop out at least TWO if not THREE kids by...ohhh, FIVE YEARS AGO.
Intellectually I realize two things. First of all, the stereotype I bought into as a kid is outdated and not necessarily something I truly bought into at the time, let alone something that would've made me happy anyways. Secondly, I realize that life has thrown me some curve balls that I did not anticipate.
At age 18 I felt so sure of my future. I had laid down the ground work and I knew where I was going and what I was doing. I worked hard on my long-term goals with total confidence that I could achieve them.
It simply didn't occur to me that there may be obstacles out of my control that would divert my path.
I distinctly remember being surprised-dumbfounded even, that I couldn't continue on the path I'd set for myself when it finally came down to that. I was in such denial that what I imagined my path to be would not be possible that I totally ignored reality. I persevered on that path for far, far longer than was healthy to do so.
Unwise.
I ended up paying a huge price. I did more damage than good. To this day I deal with physical pain every day because in my denial I did damage to my body that cannot be remedied.
But I just could not let go.
I could not.
How could it be, I thought, that this life I want so badly-the career that I worked so hard for over so many years could just be gone...
*POOF*
...just like that? It wasn't possible. It couldn't be. So I hung on.
Unwise.
Recently the news was full of nightly stories about floods-the television screen displaying image after image of buildings standing tall and proud only to be tossed aside by the rushing flood waters.
By standing firm in stubbornness, I think I became like a house in the path of a flooded, raging river.
It's not like I didn't see the water coming. I chose to toss some sandbags out and stand firm. And then the water washed my house away, leaving me with nothing but pieces of what I thought I had.
And so now?
I think I am finally learning that when life throws you curveballs, you should bend.
Adjust your expectations, or just plain GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY.
I am trying to BEND.
But man, it is not easy.
I'm the type of person who likes assurances. I like knowing what's going to happen ahead of time and I am NOT a fan of surprises.
EXAMPLES:
1) I wont go see a movie until the "spoiler" appears on moviespoiler.com and I can check to make sure I will like the ending before I visit the theater.
2) I have been to several psychics because I like the idea that they could reassure me of what is in my future and, even though all of them have turned out to be full of sh*t, I'll always be willing to give it another go, holding on to the hope that someday just maybe one of them will be right.
3) I read the end of books before deciding whether or not I should start from the beginning and, NO, it doesn't bother me in the slightest that I already know the ending when I'm reading chapter 1.
I LIKE knowing the ending ahead of time.
I want to know how my story ends.
I want to know when this ride will be over and I can relax a little.
Don't misunderstand me. I am grateful for what I have. Namely, a roof over my head, solid employment that is stable and not vulnerable to a recession/budget cuts (depending on who you ask), good friends, family, general good health. I have a handful of really, really wonderfully supportive people in my life right now whom I would not know had I not ended up on the path I currently walk and I am grateful for them every single day.
I guess mostly, this post is a rambling thought process of sorts. An attempt to talk myself out of my current pre-birthday funk.
And even though almost no one reads this blog currently, maybe someday someone will who is feeling just as downtrodden.
And hopefully that person will feel a little bit less alone.
No comments:
Post a Comment