True story: I’ve had a secret Pinterest board going for a few years, dreaming of and planning for the most epic & instagram worthy golden birthday party you imagine. If it’s cheesy and over the top and SPARKLY, it’s probably on the board. Then, at the beginning of 2020 I realized my birthday would FINALLY fall over a weekend and I.was.STOKED!!!!!!!
(Yes, I know I’m extra. Guac is extra too and everyone still loves it so...anyways, moving on!)
Before you completely judge me, you should know that I’ve had a weird obsession with golden birthdays for as long as I can remember. It all started when my elementary school bestie got to celebrate hers early on in life. I remember thinking it was SO COOL. But then I did the math and calculated that I wouldn’t celebrate my golden until I was 27 - in the year 2020. I remember that it sounded unfathombly far away and that, as such a young child, 2020 sounded like a fictional year in a different dimension.
And well, 2020 is here. 27 is here. And to be honest? It kind of feels like a fictional year in a different dimension...
Technically our stay at home order has long expired, but with our county & state being the #1 covid hotspot & cases rising each day, it became clear that a birthday celebration of any kind at all was not going to be feasible, much less ethical in any way. Small sacrifice for what I hope will be a worthwhile impact.
The truth is that 2020 has changed a whole lot of things. It has changed birthday parties, sure, but what weighs heaviest on my heart are things less obvious to the outside viewer. It’s been a year of such constant heartbreak, frustration, and unrest has made celebrating anything feel more weird and inappropriate than natural and normal.
I remember back in March that I said to my roommate “I feel so bad for everyone having birthdays right now. It must mentally be so hard to get in the mind frame of celebrating a “happy birthday” when so much is unknown, when so much is overwhelming, when so many are hurting…”
2020 has brought physical changes, with “social distancing” and quarantine, with “distance learning” and celebratory car parades. But beyond the physical implications, its’s had notable mental and emotional ones too.
I know that I, for one, will never again take for granted “simple” things like gathering of friends together to celebrate birthdays, like hugging friends without hesitation and fear, like going to church in a physical building with 100 other people, and like seeing my parents from less than a 6 foot distance.
So, I guess you could say the golden birthday celebration isn’t exactly going according to plan.
This whole past year of being 26 hasn’t gone quite how I planned either. Just 2 weeks after my 26th birthday, I woke up with a headache. I have a history of migraines so I figured I just needed to treat it, get some rest, and would probably (hopefully) feel better in a few days. But that’s far from what happened in the days, weeks, and months following that day which has forever changed my life. For those keeping track, two weeks from today will mark the very last day within memory that I did NOT have a headache.
It’s hard, emotionally, to look back on this last year and see the girl who felt so optimisti, so genuinely happy about a new year, a new age, and new opportunities. That girl who never saw this coming, and never knew how to prepare.
2 lumbar punctures, multiple full spine MRIs, 1 dynamic myelogram scan, 5 blood patches, 9 total fibrin glue patches, 3 hospital inpatient stays and 30+ lost pounds later, I think it’s fair to say this year wasn’t easy on me. I have had more outpatient appointments, blood draws, scans and painful procedures than I could ever even try to estimate. I’ve felt like a pin cushion, a lab rat, and a mysterious patient who just desperately wants to STOP stumping all of the specialists. I no longer desire to be a “very interesting case study”. I want out!!
Just the other day when I was planning out my weekend, I thought to myself “ooh, I know! I’ll deaccess my port Saturday morning. That way I can swim & shower & just be needle-free for a day, that will be a real birthday treat!”
Then a half-second later I had another thought that felt like the mental version of a double take. Like wait.... what did I just think about? What did I just say? Did I really just reference having a few hours without a needle embedded in my chest as “A TREAT”?!
So much of my life is now revolved around my illnesses & all that I do continuously to fight to feel halfway decent. And it’s all become so routine, mundane even. Most days I don’t mind at all. But in this brief thought train, somehow tangentially related to my upcoming birthday, I had a much bigger and deeper realization of... when and how did THIS become my life?
I’m trying hard to look forward to 27 with optimism and faith, but I’d be lying if I said that was easy. Celebrating a birthday feels hard right now, and that’s okay.
How does one look forward to a fresh start, a turning of a new leaf, when each previous year has only proven more difficult and painful than the one before it? How does one, in the context of a global pandemic, a history-making anti-racism movement, a country divided by hate and political allegiances and just overall REALLY HEAVY FEELINGS feel truly….. happy? Celebratory?
Then throw in some murder hornets and um yeah, no thanks. I’ll opt out of 2020, please and thank you.
The truth of the matter is that the weight of the world is unimaginably heavy, and I find it impossible to not shoulder some of the burden, to not carry the collective weight upon my shoulders. It’s just who I am and it’s what I do. But it can be exhausting. I am, by nature, a helper. A fixer. A do-er. A smiler. A “pretend everything is fine and everyone will never know you’re not happy”-er. But somehow, on this “happy birthday”, I find the word happy pretty low on the list of emotions running through my veins.
And before the haters come, yes, I fully acknowledge how privileged I am and how privileged of a “problem” this is. But I’ve always promised to share what’s authentically on my heart, which is what I’m doing here today.
I am beyond blessed. I’m blessed to look forward to a birthday next year, and hopefully a Pinterest board that gets dusted off after being pushed to the back burner. I’m blessed to have so many family & friends that I wish I could celebrate with. I am blessed to have memories of so many fun birthday celebrations over the last 26 years. I am blessed in the simple fact that I have never before spent a birthday feeling the ways I do today. I am blessed that I live in a world where I can share these thoughts and feelings and start the types of conversations I wish people were having more often. I am blessed that although I am furloughed, I am still employed and work with people who have become like true family. I am blessed that I am still COVID-free, which isn’t the case for many of rhe members of that family.
Whether or not I feel “happy” about this birthday doesn’t negate the wonderful and beautiful aspects of my life that still exist. 2020 has just made them harder to see, difficult to spot through the thick fog that is composed of the unrest of our country and the heaviness of our hearts.
But, ready or not, the day is here. I don’t have a choice in the matter. 27 has arrived. A new page. A new year to make memories that start with “remember that one time when….”.
Here we go, 27. Please, please be gentle. Please, for the love of God, be even a tiny bit ✨golden ✨.