As my birthday rolls around, I feel like sharing what I wrote last year around this time. This story still resonates with me (with some edits).
Birthdays are interesting…and growing up, or really the act of becoming is one that is saturated with much emotion.
When I was a child, birthdays seemed to be so much fun. My birthday was exciting! It felt like a day where my existence was not only acknowledged but also celebrated.
Each year on my birthday I used to feel like I grew several inches taller. I felt renewed and excited to be a year older.
People change, though. Times change and life seems to morph your old perceptions of things into a new perspective. My enthusiasm for my birthday and growing up faded.
When I turned 18, the reality of being an adult hit me, and I was no longer interested in having birthday parties.
I was taking an acting intensive at Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York City. The first day of the class happened to fall on my 18th birthday. I was dropped off that morning by a friend of the family. She stayed the night at our house in Connecticut, and the next day drove into the city for a class herself, which made for the perfect carpool situation. However, that evening, after my class had ended, I was prepared to take the train home from Grand Central Station. It was the first time I had ever taken the train by myself.
The morning I left for class, my mother had printed out a map for me from MapQuest of directions from the Stella Adler acting school to Grand Central Station. That evening when my class had ended, I was very tired, but I felt equipped to get myself to the train station. The moment I stepped out of the building onto the city sidewalk, I pulled my MapQuest papers out of my bag. I was bundled up in my jacket, and I felt cool in my tweed winter cap. Unaware of how I looked, but probably looking like a cute kid from the Newsies, I ventured off down the sidewalk following the directions on the map.
I was looking diligently at the written directions, and the picture of the map. I looked up for a moment. Three guys walked by me going the other direction. They looked at me as they sauntered by. The boys were in a horizontal line walking next to each other. The guy in the middle looked right at me and said, “Hey! Where you going, sweetie?” The other guys laughed, and I felt my feet move faster, keeping time with my racing heart.
I felt an uneasiness set in as I stopped at the end of the sidewalk. I looked at my map. I read the written directions. Darn it! I went the wrong way, I realized. I turned around and walked brusquely down the sidewalk, hoping that no one else will jump out and say weird things.
I reached the end of the sidewalk. I checked my map again. Good! This is the right way. I reassured myself. There was a man taking out the trash to one side of me, and a woman standing on the other side of me. As the man tied up the trash bag, he looked over my shoulder and peered at the map I was holding, “Where you going, sweetheart?” he said.
What is happening tonight? I thought to myself, my mouth closed tightly. I put my map away in my bag. The crosswalk light turned green, and I started to bolt across the street, desperate to get away from this city.The sound of breaks crying stopped me and suddenly all I saw was bright yellow in my face. I stepped back and my heart started pounding as the taxicab that had nearly run me over, began to drive around me, and as it sped away a woman yelled “Watch where you’re going!” It was the same woman that had stood next to me on the corner and for a moment I thought she was yelling at me, but I realized she had yelled at the taxi driver.
I took a big, but shaky breath as I made my way to the other side. I walked a few blocks to Grand Central, walked to where my train was supposed to depart from, bought myself a birthday ice cream, ate it while I waited for the train, and then boarded the train to Westport. My mother picked me up, we drove home, and I was greeted by a very excited sister upon arriving at my house. She excitedly took me into the kitchen. My mom and sister sang “Happy Birthday” to me then asked me to blow the candles out on a lovely half chocolate, half vanilla cake that looked homemade. We had some quick slices of cake, the taste of salt stung my tongue, but I tried not to make a face, and then I was hurried to my room. My sister bounded into the room before me and pointed to my present that hung delicately above my bedroom windows.
“Curtains!” she said, “For your room! Like you’ve always wanted.”
My heart broke. It sank into the pit of my stomach. Lovely curtains, but something that didn’t excite me anymore. I didn’t feel like having cake, nor could I share in the joy that others had for my birthday. My sister stood there beaming and waiting for my reaction.
Like a tired, and somewhat exasperated parent, I heard myself say, “Thank you for the lovely curtains, and the nice cake, but all I want to do is just go to bed.”
I broke my sister’s heart with this. I watched her deflate before me. I handed my plate of cake to my mother, as my little sister tried to persuade me to be more enthusiastic. “But you have curtains now, like you’ve always wanted!” I thanked her again, and perhaps in some way apologized for not being as excited as she wanted me to be, but I just wanted the day to be over. I went to bed feeling deeply melancholy.
From then on, I wasn’t completely excited about my birthday, and they all began to feel very strange after that. Some were nice and I was always glad for whatever celebration happened to unfold, even when I spent the day mostly alone, or at work, but it was still a day that felt off. Or rather I just felt off within the day. It was as if I had gotten lost trying to walk to the train station and my confidence in completing the task faded. Each birthday that came around, I always felt a little bit ready, a little bit sad, a little scared, and a little bit anxious.
There’s an episode of Friends, the popular 1994 sitcom, that is one I have always found very entertaining. However, it’s been hitting a new cord with me. The episode is called The One Where They All Turn Thirty. As you may guess from the title of the episode the six friends all turn 30-years-old. They all handle it differently, but for the most part, it seems to shake the characters. Many of them are left feeling a little bit ready, a little bit sad, a little scared, and a little bit anxious.
Monica Geller gets drunk and then clumsily makes a speech at her surprise party. In front of her parents, brother, and friends, she admits that she has been drunk before, and that she’s smoked a cigarette. Although she reassures herself and everyone that since she’s turned thirty it’s okay because she can do whatever she wants and that’s because she is “a grown-up”. Then she proceeds to faint.
Joey Tribbiani was another character that didn’t handle this birthday very well. As he’s sitting in front of his cake with a bunch of candles glowing, and his friends all smiling, he proceeds to look up to the ceiling and cry loudly like a child “Why, God, why?”
As my birthday arrives and I continue venturing into this new decade of my life. I find myself feeling similarly to the Friends characters. I simultaneously feel disheveled and unraveled like Monica, and completely distraught like Joey. I have felt like making a clumsy, but bold speech about how grown up I am. While also feeling fearful about growing up, and blaming God to cover up my fear.
While there may be a lot of mixed emotions about growing up and not feeling totally ready for it, if there’s one thing I’ve learned so far, it’s that no one is truly going to be a perfect adult. Everyone is really on their own individual journey and that is refreshing. Encouraging, even. So, I find myself thinking about this overarching theme and question, “How to build my own life?” One that feels supportive of the person and lifestyle I’d like to live.
Like drops of rain that perkily plink off the roof, an idea keeps coming to my thought. Piece by piece.
Piece by piece we build our lives. Piece by piece we build the home, the environment, the career, the family, or the space we’d like to live in. The pieces come together when the timing is right, and we become who we’d like to be slowly over time. Piece by piece. Sometimes the pieces might not fall into place and sometimes some pieces that fit before might fall out of place. This can be disappointing, but it is only making space for the next right piece. Life is really interesting, isn’t it?
Humans often want a sense of completeness and closure for most things. Somehow, life will never be a finished, perfectly crafted puzzle. We don’t finish the puzzle of life. It is an ongoing puzzle. Pieces come and go, come and go, like the flowing tide. It becomes infused with new colors, new shapes, and new patterns all the time. Each moment brings with it a new piece and an old piece that perhaps no longer belongs.
The sooner we can accept the constantly changing puzzle of life, enjoy the piece by piece process of building our lives, and the process of becoming (which requires accepting every piece of ourselves moment by moment), the happier we’ll be through the journey.
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.” -Douglas Adams
Here’s to the next year around the sun…