My parents made a big deal out of my birthday every year when I was a kid. I'm not sure if it's because they did it just for me, or if I made them be that way. For as long as I can remember, my birthday countdown begins on January 1st. Then it's exactly two months.
I remember in elementary school that I would check out the expiration dates on our pints of milk and get really excited when I would see my birthday. If the date was on a pint of milk, it must be really close! If it was on a bag of chips or a box of cereal, it could be a few months away. Even Valentine's Day is just another stop on the Month of Miranda. Even if I don't have a boyfriend, hey, in fourteen days i'll have a birthday! I smiled when I bought my last pint of milk at the store recently. Guess what the expiration date was... :)
Despite having a birthday on the last day of February, I have only gotten ONE snowday as a birthday present. It was in kindergarten, I was five, and I was MAD. Every kid in the class had a party on their birthday, and made their own cake, and it was a good time for all. I had missed the Valentine's Day party because I was the last kid in the class to get the chickenpox. And then, SNOW, ON MY BIRTHDAY! No party! No fair! That wasn't a really good month.
The last few birthdays have been kind of rough.
Last year, I was at the hands of a merciless employer, that strung me along thinking that I would be able to write full-time for them. I had thrown close to three years of my life, my shitty, first job post-college, into thinking that if I just worked hard enough, I'd get what I wanted. If I just took another graduate class. If I just worked all of the bad hours with a smile. If I had just freelanced enough. This time last year, I was at the end of my full-time writing trial, and by my birthday, I knew they would be sending me back to my dead-end job in another part of the publication.
In a way, my time wasn't wasted, because I got to meet a lot of other hard-working, creative people my own age that I am still friends with. We all went to the Macado's in downtown Roanoke and I celebrated my birthday surrounded by people. Not getting what I wanted so dearly still hurt. I admit I did a lot of self-medicating in those weeks, waiting for the higher ups to decide my fate.
I took a week off for my birthday, and took a good, hard look at 25. Just exactly what the hell was I going to do now?
Fortunately, as the months started to quickly drain away in 2006, I had an opportunity to go back to school fall straight into my lap when I needed it the most.
I moved to Tha Burg, I got settled in class. I am so happy now that I feel that I have no right to complain about a bad day... life could be so much worse. I got an opportunity to hit the big red "RESET" button on my life... and maybe this time I'll do things better.
The hard-earned lessons I've picked up this year:
1. I am a lot smarter and more capable than I give myself credit for. If I plan on doing anything with my life, I need to put a great deal more faith in myself than I have in the past.
2. I have fought a long, hard battle with self-esteem for as long as I can remember. I can remember every single insult that was thrown my way when I was in school. I can remember almost every single time that I was called ugly, fat, or even worse. I have taken a good hard look at myself and I have realized that every single one of those hateful insults and the hateful people who threw them at me were WRONG. Flat wrong.
3. I have learned not to blame myself for other people's issues. Screw them.
My profile line isn't a lie. It's not been a lot of fun thinking that 26 is four years away from thirty. My life is so much more different than I really planned it to be, but I still think that I'm on the right track now. And that's the first time I've felt that way in years.
I've been doing a lot of serious thinking about what my life will be post-graduate school, and the thing that makes me the happiest is knowing that the next steps I take will be all mine. I won't be doing it to please my parents. I won't be arranging my life around someone I'm dating. It's all me, and even if I crash and burn spectacularly, at least the flames will be nice.
2007 is shaping up to be a really nice year, from these first two months. 26 might not be so very bad after all.
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