On Waking Up, 30 and Fatherless
Today I woke up in my 30s. Just like that, overnight. A girl in her 20s one day and a woman in her 30s the next. Whatever that means.
I’m not sure what kind of dramatic overnight difference I was expecting this year, if I expected anything at all. It’s not exactly like this is my first time going to bed and waking up a day older…I’ve kinda done that thing thousands of times by this point in my life.
The first text I saw when I reached for my phone, however, reminded me that this year IS different. The first thing I read wasn’t even a happy birthday…it was a text from an old friend reminding me of a dear memory of my Dad. Tears filled my eyes and the familiar stab in my gut and in my heart reminded me that this is the first birthday without him: the first of all the rest. Not like I could have forgotten…one doesn’t simply forget that they’re fatherless.
Never again will I wake up and have a voicemail saying “Heyyyy there Sister. This is your dear ol’ Dad…just hoping you have a great day today!” (Sidenote: why is it so endearing when parents introduce themselves and why did I not notice until after he was already gone?)
We are a culture that celebrates nostalgia. We declare our birthday rituals, eat the favorite foods and watch a movie in the middle of the day or stay in our pj’s all morning just because we can. We look back and ritualize, chronicling and contrasting THIS year to our LAST year. THIS year we’re much better off than all the other years before it. We’re healthier and we’re stronger and we have voicemails and text messages and facebook posts that make us feel loved. We delight in the funny memes and e-cards. We soak up the warm and fuzzies that make us feel connected and important and show us that people care enough to spend 12 seconds of their day recognizing that today is a special day, dammit. We crave it and we relish in it and we give ourselves permission to be really frickin happy, ALL DAY, without remorse. Because today is our birthday.
But today is just a day, really.
It began like many, it will end like most others. When I wake up tomorrow, I’ll still be 30. I’ll still be figuring out what it means to be a woman, a daughter, a girlfriend, a good person. I’ll still notice the hole in my heart that’s shaped like my Daddy and I’ll still look up and tell him I love him and miss him. Just like every other day.
