A birthday mini essay
This piece is part of the #52essays2017 challenge where I will share one essay a week in 2017. To learn more about this challenge or to participate, check out writer Vanessa Martir’s website and post about it. To learn more about me and my writing, visit my website or follow me on Twitter.
I wondered how I would be when I grew into my gray hairs. I wondered who I would be when my reaction began to slow and when hearing would become strained. I wondered what would happen to me at an age when things should be settled, and decided, and a path beat down and readied. I had wondered at 5 years old of my life in my 30s, of all the things I’d be able to do like eat ice cream for dinner, or jump on my bed or stay up late, late into the night just to know what happens when no one is looking. That would be the life, I thought then. Being adult would be great, if only I could get there sooner. I had wondered at 15 what 40 would look like — a house, a husband, and a job. Kids who run around my feet and look up at me, thinking I was as tall as a tree and able to tickle the sky with my finger tips. I had wondered at 23, when adult things were brand new and terrifying, how things would just happened in my late 40, and how all the questions I had would be figured out like a puzzle in a newspaper, and that this doubt would be faded away into the sunset. At 30, I thought there was more to life that what I was living. I thought that I didn’t know myself — my quarter life crisis late but on time.
And so my hair is more gray today than yesterday. Each strain is a trophy, an artifact of a past celebration or worry. They are as a part of me as air, as water, as skin. Without them, my loves gained and lost, my triumphs and sorrows, they all go away. I am empty without them, as I am empty without the loves of my life.
And now I wish for time to slow down. I wish to enjoy this moment more. I want to enjoy my friends more, my work more, my students more, my family more. It’s not because of age but because it took so long to get here, to finally get to this place where I no longer have to wonder. I am finally in the place where all I have to do is breathe.
This is 39. This is life. This is me.
