Reflections on age 38

I do this every night before my birthday; sit down at a keyboard to reflect on the year. There is a comfort in tradition, routine. As we age, we create groves — we don’t fall into them, no, we make them ourselves. This year, the groves went away and we — I — had to find new ways, forge new paths, make a new life.

Last November. Where was I last November? What was I doing? What was life like? It seems like, in a way, that life started in March and everything before that was a dream that runs together. I recall one year on my birthday, I watched the sun rise. I was a night owl then, and that was a significant decision. Now, I am always up before dawn, but that is the only time I ever remember just watching the sky getting lighter and lighter until that first too, too bright blob of sun peeked over the mountain. One year I was doing a circadian rhythm experiment; sleeping four hours at a time and staying up for eight between. My birthday was on Thanksgiving that year and I was exhausted. But what did I do last year?

I honestly can’t recall at all. Was last year the year we went to the beautiful hotel and spa? We were nearly the only guests, we had an hour in the salt cave which made our skin amazingly soft, a fireplace in our room, and chocolate strawberries delivered to the room. We lived like royalty….or at least less like peasants for one beautiful night. When we awoke, a thin blanket of snow had covered the world and I was content. My spouse is the best. But was that last year? It seems like something from another lifetime.

I remember the Christmas of 38 (my own 38, not to be confused with ’39 the year). Christmas is an event for my family — we are five children, plus significant others, plus my parents, and my one sister has a baby child — in a small house in the Twilight Zone, we are legion. It was my nieces first christmas. She sat on my lap and I taught her how to open presents. We are legion, but we also have developed methods for holidays, everyone knows their tasks, everyone works to make it pleasant. We have a grove that we have forged over decades.

I have hit another 9. My last year in the 3’s. After this, 3 and I will only meet occasionally. I have liked the 3’s. Last time I hit a 9, it haunted me a little; 19 turning 20 is that much closer to the drinking age, 29 turning 30 was — to my mind then — leaving the decade of possibilities. Being 29 was much more harrowing for me than actually turning 30. Once the thing was done, I realized that I would not instantly wither and become old, nor did I lose any possibility except the dubious fortune of being famous young. The thought of being 39 doesn’t fill me with such horror; but it does give me pause. Forty. I am going to be forty soon. That will take a year’s worth of getting used to.

My potential for having children is coming to a close. My body tells me that very, very forcefully each month. It demands that having children would be great! That I could make it work! Look at Amanda Palmer after all! Look at my sister! She makes it look so easy! Why not!?! And I know that these things are true — we would make it work, it would be great in some ways, I would adore the child. But no child will pass through my body. We may have a child in a few years, through a surrogate or adoption if we find ourselves financially able to. Or we may not. Letting dreams sit in abeyance — being neither dead or alive is easier at 38, almost 39.

There was a lot of adulting this year. I feel like it was proto-adulting, because my dad often split the expense of big work with us, but I called the plumbers/electricians/doctor; I made the appointments; I spoke with them and made the decisions. There are a lot of stupid little things that prey on the mind of an adult that no one warned me about. Things that they should have taught us in school. I took two years of math I did not comprehend and did not pass and have no call to use, but I am still unsure how to change the water filter in my well-fed plumbing system. I had to watch a video on how to change out an bad outlet and I still haven’t done it yet because I am kinda scared to mess around with flipping the breakers off. But there are awesome things about adulting too…like buying a new couch for the first time and A.) having it be every bit as comfortable and wonderful as I’d ever hoped, unlike every hand me down couch I have ever had…which is all of them. and B.) Discovering that new couches come with pillows!

I’ve come this far without speaking of the 2020 pandemic in more than an oblique reference. In part that is because — yes, it changed my life, but my life has been changed before. In 2009, I was laid off from a good adjunct professor position because of the recession and we decided to get rid of everything except what would fit in our car and picked a direction. We landed in Seattle and there was no theatre work for me. I made a living off of Craigslist for almost a year (with help and support from NYS unemployment and my family). So, it didn’t hit me as something totally unknown.

Not to say a pandemic is something I ever expected to live through (assuming, of course that I do). I expected a much more violent and dramatic apocalypse frankly. I miss theatre. I miss touring shows and pushing myself to coil the whole feeder cable to prove to the boys that I am not some girl around for my looks, I can hang. I miss quick changes. I miss painting big things. But I don’t miss it too. I can admit that. I was getting burned out on the constant round of theatre. I was getting tired of it. There is always another show. Now there is not. Now I have been far enough away to miss it. And to know what I want from it when we all go back.

I miss hugs.

I miss my gallery, the Bundy, and First Friday art walks.

I miss dressing up for opening night.

But the reset of the world gave me opportunities too. The chance to work on our home. The time to learn tai chi. The reason to spend an hour a day talking to my mom and days of each month with my sister and her sweet child. The opportunity to become a partner and creative director of a business in Japan. All so unexpected.

The pandemic took away, but it gave as well. If there is anything I have learned in my 38 — almost 39 — years, it is to find the silver lining. There is always one if you look.

My husband almost died on the past Christmas morning. He thought he was having a heart attack and he probably was — or a hypertensive crisis, which is close enough for my non-medical mind. We had no health insurance, so we did the best we could, but I was afraid. I really thought he might die. This year, I have lived in his world. For an introvert, the lockdown was a release of the constant pressure to go out, be out, do things. We have built new rituals, new grooves. We have gone deeper into the pool that is our love. I know more than I ever have before how deeply his philosophies have become a part of me, how much I rely on his wisdom, how much my joy is basking in his adoration, and how much he relies on my adoration in return. We are, more than ever, one being in two bodies and I would not have it any other way.

It has been a year of quiet joys, silent terrors, letting go, and standing up. It has been a year that stripped away the unessential and clarified the vital.

It has been a year.