So yeah, about that birthday.
I am officially 24 years old this week, and like last year my birthday was a little bumpy, and I spent most of the day being very sour.
It's hard getting older, and having to come to terms with your life. I'm not even talking about the deep existential crisis, I'm talking down and out being a very broke, very unhappy, semi-friendless 20 something. That is damn near depressing.
After weeks of cold snow and cabin fever, March 1st was beautiful here in the Northeast. The sun was shining, it was warm outside and the people were out in droves tempted by the spring like weather. I awoke to text messages from the usual (mom, Marie), a few presents to open from the usual (mom, Marie) and started my birthday.
That is where the excitement began and died folks. I had absolutely nothing to do for the rest of the day. I realize that outside of 'hang out' buddies, I don't have any real friends here. No friends to take me out to lunch or dinner, no friends to go to a movie with, nothing. I woke up, got dressed, and headed out on my birthday to run errands. Fun times.
I mailed my mom her birthday package, ran to the library to return some very overdue books, spent an hour at the library getting a handful of books I will most likely not read, and then I wandered around for a while, like a lost soul. I had no where to go, I had no invitations to do anything or be anywhere. I ended up getting some takeout from a restaurant and walking home.
I spent the rest of the day wallowing (I'm really good at it) and cursing everybody who failed to wish me a happy birthday. It's not to say that the messages and comments and phone calls that I did receive didn't mean anything to me. Because they did, all of them. But because I often feel this great sense of loneliness here, I wanted this birthday to prove me wrong. I wanted someone to surprise me, and take note that March 1st was my bday, and that they wanted to make sure I enjoyed it, even if it was in the smallest of ways.
Like a mature 24 year old I pouted, promised myself that I would never speak to those people again, and that when I became the most talented producer/writer/wife of Sufjan Stevens in the whole entire world they would regret not acknowledging me. Yeah, mature I know.
But then I put the ice cream and the tissues away and realized that I can't go around expecting much out of people who aren't really my friends, and who spend most of their time inviting me to parties where everyone gets high and drunk. I don't want to hang out in someones basement (their parents no less) smoking pot and potentially making out with a co-worker. I just don't want to do any of that. It's just not my thing.
But the birthday frustration represented a whole other issue....things need to happen in my life. I mean they needed to happen last week, or even yesterday but I would settle for right now. I seriously cannot do this for much longer, not because it's lame (or because eventually I will have to pay back loans) but because it isn't what I am suppose to be doing. I am afraid that I am so afraid of leading a boring life, that I am playing it safe. The risks I think I am taking aren't risks at all, but instead are just these life choices I have made to buy me time.
When I was younger I dreamed of being an extraordinary person. Because of shows like Buffy, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Roswell I had this idea that I would wake up one day and find out I was destined for greatness. That I was the lost princess of a King in a far away land, that I was suppose to the save the world from evil or some shit. So yeah, maybe I wasn't going to be a vampire slayer, or a witch, or fall in love with an alien but I knew (wanted) that one day I would realize that I was meant to be somebody, and that somebody was going to be an influence to the lives of some people.
And I hate that at 24, I am still sort of waiting for my destiny to land in my lap. For that one moment, when I'm least expecting it, for someone to give me some insight into the life I am suppose to be leading. And I know, that's not how the world works. This is not CW episode, but I need my life to be something, rather than the nothing that it is.
So yeah, maybe this birthday beat me down, but it lit a fire under my ass (is that the saying? it seems a little dirtier in writing) and I need to do something different. WAY DIFFERENT. Maybe even moving to Australia. Okay not Australia, but you get the point. If I want things to be different I might have to change things up a bit. I may have to take risks just to see what may be born out of it.
I guess that's what being a grown up is all about.
2 comments:
:( I'm sorry. Now I feel really bad for not getting you your CDs in time. I was hoping to make it before your birthday, but I've had little time and energy lately. I'll get it to you soon, I promise.
Don't stress too hard about the circle of friends. Those things come and go with time. A little fire under your butt is definitely a good thing, though, especially now it sounds like.
I love reading your writing cuz it's so clear, honest, and I can really relate. I had forgotten what it's like to be in my early twenties and now, after reading this, in the words of the immortal Celine, it's all coming back to me now. I think we've all been there (short of the lucky 99.9999th percentile)--finding out that our universal cosmic search for significance is turning out to be a real dud. We are not special in the way we hoped, and our lives will not be either. We must learn to embrace the mundane and be, gasp, normal (and dare I say it, average). No special powers have or will be bestowed.
But take (cold?) comfort in this, even the most extraordinary people among us feel the way we do--that there's nothing that special about them and their search for significance is also a big let down. Madonna famously said in an interview in the 90's that she feels pretty plain, that's why she's always pushing herself to do more. Even success is a failure.
I hope you find peace and satisfaction this year--there is all the meaning and significance we seek to be found in fulfilling the purpose for which we were created.
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