Birthdays and Beginnings

59 is coming and i need to embrace it

I’ll be 59 this year. I’m inching ever closer to 60 and that both frightens and elates me. I’m scared to be heading into my waning years, but I’m happy that I’ve made it here relatively intact and feeling — at least mentally — like I’m still in my 30s.

I like birthdays. I enjoy celebrating them, marking down this event in my life and reminiscing about what the past year has been like. Have I learned or gained anything? Did I have enjoyable moments? Did I accomplish anything? Usually the answers to those questions are kind of sobering, but I’ll stop myself from further introspection and think, I lived. And I lived well. That’s all I can ask.

Birthdays are supposed to be a celebration of you, your life, your very existence. I am here, I think. That’s something to celebrate, no? Oh, there have been years when birthdays didn’t go as planned, where they came and went and were barely acknowledged, where life was off the rails and it was hard to stare another year in the face when I barely wanted to finish off the one I was currently living. But there have been very good birthdays. The weekend in Pennsylvania. The long week in Lake Tahoe. Every birthday that we’ve gathered at my parents’ house for a late summer barbecue, where my family made me feel special. And isn’t that what we all want? To just feel special sometimes?

I’ve always tried to make my kids birthdays special. I’ve thrown them parties (thank you, Chuck E. Cheese), decorated the house with balloons and streamers, showered them with gifts ranging from small (coloring books) to large (bicycles). I wanted them to feel like it was their day, that they should celebrate themselves, be happy to be given another year. As they got older, the birthdays got less extravagant because the kids became less available and, honestly, less interested. We have cake, because there should always be cake, we sing happy birthday, we go our separate ways. It’s disheartening to me, the birthday lover. They don’t quite understand my fixation on birthdays. But neither do I.

58 has been filled with an unreasonable amount of sadness and anxiety. It’s not the way I planned it to go when I celebrated my birthday last August. I dreamed of better things, of life going back to normal, of strengthening my marriage, of travel and fun. Life is anything but normal, my marriage has fallen apart, and fun is nowhere to be found. 58 can suck it.

For the past few years, I’ve been writing a letter to myself on my birthday, going over what happened in the past year and my goals for the upcoming year. I treat it like New Year’s Day, complete with resolutions (make those doctor appointments!), proclamations (I will write more!) and declarations (you are not close to death!). I reminisce, I predict, I apologize to myself for the things I didn’t accomplish during the year and promise to do better this time.

I’m not doing that this year. My birthday present to myself it to just let life be. I don’t want to rehash 58. I don’t want to measure it up against 55 or even 35. I don’t want to anticipate what 59 will be like or set goals for myself that will just fall by the wayside the minute my double demons of depression and anxiety keep me from doing anything constructive. Time is fleeting, and I just want to live my life without the constant measuring sticks of accomplishment and fulfillment. I just want to be. I want to be good to myself and part of that is not coming up with a list of unreasonable expectations that will just make me feel bad six months into 59.

But I will still celebrate my birthday. I will celebrate the day itself, rather than the coming year or the previous one. I’ll mark off the day on the calendar without looking behind or forward. I’ll spend the day with family and there will be cake, because there should always be cake.