Chasing the Sun

The one after turning another year older.

Aug 29, 2023

*The clouds were really doing their thing tonight on my flight.🤍*

This past weekend, I celebrated a birthday. I was in New York City to ring in 37, and officially enter my late 30s.

I’ve always loved birthdays, but aging has become a more complicated experience in the last few years. Since losing my mom right before my 34th birthday, I have become eternally more aware of how much of a privilege getting older is. I bristle at others’ comments about wrinkles and the loathing that seems to come for turning a year older. It’s such a gift, one so many don’t get — as is every breath and every new day where we get to see the sun rise, feel it set. I know I sound like a broken record in this little corner sometimes, but what can I say? My perspective was permanently shifted.

In the days leading up to my birthday this year, I found myself thinking about how much I’ve changed in the last few years, and about the ways I’ve stayed the same. I no longer care as much about what people think of me, am no longer embarrassed about the things that I used to assume made me different or weird, uncool or cringey (like sharing my messiness with the internet). Some of that is age I’m sure, and perhaps some of it was born out of losing my mom the way I did. I’m more comfortable in my own skin (even with, yep, the small wrinkles that are suddenly showing up to the party) and in my decisions than I was even 5 years ago, and have gotten a lot better at letting “no” be a complete sentence. I’m less worried about what honoring my boundaries means to someone else (though forever a work in progress), and have come to realize my mom was right that no one is paying as much attention to you as you think they are.

At the same time, there is something that admittedly scares me a little about getting older. I am grateful for the opportunity, and yet I’m nervous to do it seemingly alone….and “alone” is really just code for without my mom, because I know I have family and friends and a community. But 37 and a few days old, and deep down, I’m still very much just someone who desperately misses her mother. I have had so many days where I wanted desperately to call her, to have her tell me what she thought I should do, or to just listen to the things that scare me. While age 36 in particular included a lot of good change and a lot of adventures with people I love, it also had a number of ups and downs (moments where I so wished my mom was available to give me advice). I’ve wanted to hear her tell me everything is okay, to hear her laugh or tell me I’m being silly. I’ve pretended she’s texted me to go eat a brownie or watch something funny to cheer myself up, and tried to recall every reassuring thing she ever told me — things I now beat myself up for not meticulously cataloguing and saving in my brain to recall now that she can’t do it for me.

I suspect no matter how old I get, I will still feel that way — still wish so badly my mom was the first call I got the morning of my birthday, singing “Happy Birthday” in her thick New York accent.

I hadn’t been in New York City for my birthday in four years. Before the pandemic, I’d had a string of birthdays that I’d traveled back to my hometown for from the west coast, and it had started to become something of a tradition. This was the first one since losing my mom, and even though she hadn’t lived in New York in decades when she passed, the city is painted for me with memories of my childhood with her. Where we stayed near Central Park reminded me of the many summer adventures we used to have, going to Broadway plays and museum visits, along with my childhood best friend and her mom. I had a good time, but I have to admit I don’t think I want to go back on my birthday again. Being there, I missed my mom even more than I expected, and found myself forgetting she was gone, wondering when she was going to call me and ask how things were going, or if I’d had an Italian seven-layer cookie yet. It’s like she was everywhere and nowhere all at once.

It’s funny — I never anticipated becoming someone who views her own birthday with a bittersweetness or even the mellowest flavor of grief, but I guess that’s where I’m at. For now, anyways, and I’m coming to accept that that’s okay. If getting older — particularly after the last few years — has taught me anything, it’s that two things can be true at the same time. That, and that life is a precious adventure. Make it all count, in whatever ways are meaningful for you.

So Many Somethings

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