On Turning Thirty-Six
Last June I turned thirty-six and one of my well-wishers called my birthday a victory. You see, I keep forgetting that I should be dead (cancer). I guess that’s a good thing. It means I’m not dwelling on my illness. Or is it a good thing? I have the perfect opportunity to appreciate each new day as a gift and not a given. But it really just felt like another birthday. Another year closer to forty. Yikes!
See?! I should be excited that I’ll live to see forty! But I forget. I keep forgetting. When I run into people I haven’t seen for a while, the first thing they say is, “wow, you look great!” which is deliciously flattering until I realize that by “great” they mean “alive.” It’s the cousin-complement to “you look great…for thirty-six.” Oh. (sigh) Thanks, I guess.
But, really, I am happy to be alive. We all should be. Do you know how many ways we could die everyday? I do — because potential death scenarios run through my head constantly. I mean, let’s face it — it’s a fucking miracle we make it through each day. If you’ve ever ridden your bike next to a Chicago city bus, you know what I mean. Every time I pass by a bus, all I can think is, “please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, please don’t kill me.” Chicago busses will take you out and not look back.
Birthdays are like New Year’s Day; you can’t help but take stock of your life thus far. I think what surprised me most this past birthday was how different my anxieties have become compared to ten or fifteen years ago (you know, my twenties). I was so anxious then about what my life would be like now. Before I knew myself better, before I really liked myself, I worried about things like being thirty and still single or gaining weight and wrinkles. Or what people thought about me. But more than anything, I worried about never knowing what I wanted to do in life.
I was a church kid throughout my teen years, which meant that I was constantly saturated with the idea of having a “calling.” I spent hours praying and searching for what I was meant to do with my life. Like most teens who can’t see beyond themselves, I felt like everyone around me was discovering their passion and calling and I was the only one who had no clue what I was supposed to do with my life. I wanted someone to tell me “this your destiny.” No one ever did, not even my own heart. All roads seemed equally alluring and so I was frozen, unable to move in any direction. I got so desperate, I actually Googled, “what should I do with my life?” Alas, Google was not the fortune-teller I’d hoped it would be.
Now, here I am at thirty-six and I still don’t know my “calling.” But, the nice thing is, I definitely don’t worry about it anymore. Turns out I’ve learned a lot about what I like to do and what I don’t from simply living out my life. I don’t wait around for some revelation; I put one foot in front of the other and try things to see what fits (or what will pay the rent). Getting older and getting cancer both taught me more about myself than Google ever did. There are people who know what they want to do in life from an early age. There are people that decide to be nurses or web developers or engineers. People that have professional goals and work to achieve them. There are also people who do have callings like… Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Batman.
And then there are people like me who will never be introduced by their professional title — and when asked, “what do you do?” will ramble on awkwardly about jobs they’ve had and maybe what they studied in school. And I realize now that that’s okay; that instead of worrying so much about what I do, I can concentrate on who I am and who I want to be. And one thing I want to be — one thing I want to work on being — is grateful for every day. And maybe by my next birthday, I won’t have to be reminded that it is, indeed, a victory.
