35

Each year on my birthday, I take stock of my life. I ask myself if I am on the right path. I look for things that are just right because if I am doing something, anything, just right then I am living and not just existing. My birthday is MY DAY. I spend the whole day doing whatever I want. For a long time, I did not celebrate my birthday. I've had some awful ones. I've have birthdays that were forgotten, parties canceled out of spite, I've been stood up, mocked, abandoned, and once I paid for my own birthday dinner because my boyfriend just didn't want to fork over the twenty bucks or so for hot wings and beer. He told me this after we had consumed most of the meal.

A few years ago, I decided not celebrating was letting the awful fools in my life win. They give me misery all year, at least one day should go my way. I started by trying really hard not to let anything bad happen on my birthday. I usually spent the day hiding in bed. I remember when I turned 30 I was depressed about getting older. My mother gave me $75 and I spend every penny and then some at the bookstore. I read all day. Late that afternoon, I decided 30 wasn't a big deal.

After 30, I began having parties. 33 was fun. Kevin made chili, I baked a chocolate cake, Air Witch came over with her husband and children, and it was so cold outside we kept beer on the porch. Everyone laughed and laughed.

That was 2010 and at the time I had no idea I was about to become diabetic. Four months later I was in a coma. No one knew if I would wake or what I would be like if I awoke. I had the shock of waking up in ICU and then discovering I was diabetic. Kevin found me unconscious and had to tell my family I was in the emergency room, then everyone found out I was diabetic, then they had to wait for me to come out of it, and while they were waiting, the doctors warned them I might have brain damage. The 13 days I spent at the hospital were much harder on my loved ones than on me.

I do not remember my 34 birthday.

That seems odd to me right now as I type. I have an incurable illness. Now each birthday I reach is a great achievement so each birthday should be grander and greater than the last. But I don't have a clue what I did last year. I do remember forgoing cake. I think I had smores instead. yes, now I remember, Kevin built a fire, we roasted marshmallow and while we were shivering and smelling woodsmoke it began to snow. When I was a child I would wish for snow on my birthday so I wouldn't have to go back to school. How could I forget being alive? What have I been doing all year that made me forget?

34 seems like 5 lifetimes ago. So much has happened to me that most of it doesn't even seem real. I don't even know if I'm moving, let alone if I am on the right path.

35. I don't feel that old. I think I am 20. I know I'm not wise. But other times I feel like I've come full circle- just to realize I was circling emptiness. I feel a desperation too, as if I have wasted too much time. There is only one time when the whole world is in front of you. After that, year by year, things narrow, options fade away, it gets harder to start over, until finally there's only one way to go, not any which way you could go.

But, perversely perhaps, some things just don't matter to me anymore. I no longer want or need to be defined by my career. A job that pays the bills will do me just fine. But it can't take up too much of my time because I need to putter around in the garden. I need to sing when I drive, I need to cook, I need to sew, and I need to spend a lot of time sitting on my porch drinking rum.

I used to think I shouldn't have children because I might not love them enough. Now I know I have plenty of love, but I think I have waited too late. Life has become too narrow to accommodate a pregnant belly. If I had children when I was 18, they would be nearly grown now and instead of worrying about how life has treated me, I would be worrying about how life will treat them. It is a deep and aching sadness to weep for what never was.

If my future self could speak to me now, I hope she says life has been full and rich. I hope when I die I can say I was always honest and true to myself. I hope I take what life offers and give back twice in return. I hope I caused a stir. I hope I was a sensation and a hopeless romantic. I hope I made enough of an impression to be the one nobody could forget. I hope long after I am dead people report apparitions of a screaming wild woman drunk on rum. I really hope I am worth talking about.

Here's to 35 more years.