It would appear I’m doing some brooding today…

I’m still angry about the layoff. It’s been 4 months and I have so many questions for myself…

Is it that I can’t let stuff go?

What’s this feeling like my insides are frozen and screaming at me from within?

Who is this person I’m trapped in who can’t seem to move…on or otherwise?

She must be angry, right? That must be why I went back to bed after dropping the kid off at school this morning. It must be why I’m crying “for no reason” and smoking you-know-what at 1pm on a Monday when I should be doing literally anything else. It’s gotta be why I feel like my day is long wrecked by now, so what’s the point of moving this body? Might as well wait til “tomorrow,” whenever that is. Might as well let today melt away into history…

Truth is, I just want to log into my game and be a badass Draenei prot pally, leading the way through harrowing dungeons infested with pixelated enemies, bearing the brunt, “tanking” one for the team. I want to cruise around on my purple Algerian storm-whatever-it’s-called bird and dragon-ride through the sky while trance music rhythmically massages my ear drums.

Who cares if I’m playing chicken with my bank account right now. Who cares if it doesn’t feel like time is on my side. Is it on anyone’s? And isn’t it still my birthday if it’s technically two days later?

That’s another thing…. I didn’t do much for my birthday this year, but what I DID do was spend some much-needed time alone. It felt somehow freeing, like more so than usual. I kept reminding myself in my head, “Hey, it’s my birthday!” as if I can’t do whatever I want on my non-birthdays…

I’ve been trying to understand how I felt that day. Like surely if I can master that feeling, I could bottle it and spray some onto my pulse points whenever I need a boost. It’s like somehow, I felt more entitled. Entitled to what? I mean, all I did was live in the moment. 

Still, somehow my excuses felt more warranted. Simply looking around felt like a gift…like the sky was painted specifically for me…Like I had the right, on that day and that day only, to ask for whatever I wanted and people had to oblige. I mean, I didn’t really ask for anything, but I could have if I wanted to…

I also struggled. I felt my boundaries being tested. I didn’t know what I wanted to do and that kept me a bit frustrated. And that birthday energy…the stuff that changed my vibe and made me feel like I needed to fill my day with meaning, seemed fleeting.

Birthdays really have a knack for proving the passage of time, both by their marking of the fallen years, and by their skilled disassembling of the hours in a day. Like when sleeping in feels like a gift to myself, even though I know I’d do that on any normal day. That vibe had me feeling like maybe I should just get up and climb out of the box. Maybe I should just do something different.  

Today I’ve been lying to myself off and on to try and capture that vibe again. It’s a shame the words “It’s my birthday!” hit different when they’re lying. Then everything just seems to slip right back into the same ole’ same ole’ without me realizing it.

Why DO we live differently on our birthdays? Why do we appreciate our worth more on that one day than any other? It’s arbitrary when you think about it…I mean, technically the “birthday” marks the end of a year, not the beginning. When a child turns one, they then immediately begin turning two. They’ve been alive for a year already. So in that way, birthdays are a marker of what was, rather than what will be. Like, look at me! I survived another year!

I just “turned” 42…which feels weird to think about, or admit to myself, or type, or say out loud. It feels somehow, out of character…. like I’m being pulled towards something against my will…forced to obey some sort of agreed-upon rule. I don’t feel 42, whatever that means…and from what I remember about how I used to see someone in their 40s, I don’t want to.

I refuse to blame a cracking joint on my age…I refuse to talk about growing older like it’s some kind of chore. I don’t subscribe to that. I can’t stand it when someone jokes about how old they are like it’s all downhill from there, then tries to lump me into that mess because we happen to be the same age. It’s even worse when they’re younger than me…

It’s like they’re all just playing out the same storyline, over and over. Same damn game, same damn ending. As if we’re all just lining up like we did in elementary school—but instead, it’s to march right onto life’s end. Fuck that. Fuck labeling numbers with so much meaning…Fuck subscribing to that nonsense. 

I’m young, and free, and powerful…and every day is my birthday, dammit. And every day is also yours. And yea, you can cry if you want to, but you can also do whatever the hell else you wanna do, today and only today…which is to say every day because today is all that ever matters. So, Happy Birthday! Go enjoy it.