Birthdays Are Hard

It is almost my 26th birthday. I can count down the hours. I made plans, so that there would be plans as opposed to no plans. I have played up the yays and woo hoos, because I am good at doing what is expected of me. I am going to buy a dress tomorrow with my mom, since a birthday is a good reason to buy a new dress. I will pick up the phone, I will answer the text messages and emails and facebook wall posts. I will be grateful and polite and cheerful. Like I said, I'm good at doing what is expected of me.

But my birthday is really hard for me. It always has been. As you can see, it takes place in July, which means that throughout my entire childhood and adolescence, all my friends were away for the summer during my birthday. While everyone else got a cake at school and had their friends around on the weekend to celebrate, I spent my birthday with my family at whatever location we would spend our summers, which is only possible to appreciate when one no longer has a family- until that day I, like everyone I know, take their company and love completely for granted.

I tend to get really sensitive and emotional on the week of my birthday, and it sucks. I am already a sensitive and emotional person, often labeled as dramatic even, so it's like suddenly my sadness took a growth pill. Anything I've been storing, whether I'm aware of it or not, pours out of me and before I know it I'm crying on my yoga mat because my teacher said, "let's be grateful for what we have," and I don't feel like being grateful, I feel like being sad, dammit.

This birthday also has the disadvantage of being the closest to my last birthday, and suck by comparison. Last year, though I was hit with the same difficulties surrounding the time of my birthday, I was happy. I was producing Leading Ladies, a play I created from scratch and that I couldn't have been prouder of. I had two more plays coming up after it, so I didn't have to worry about what to do next. I was being creative and living the way I believed I was meant to live. I had just started dating a man I couldn't stop thinking about, and I was super ready to fall in love. I was going to yoga almost every day and feeling great about my body, mind, and spirit. It was a wonderful time in my life, and the birthday blues felt like a manageable learning experience, maybe even one I could have fun with.

But this year is not like last year. I haven't acted in a play in nine months. I haven't even auditioned. The man I was so ready to fall in love with last year; well, I did fall in love, but I ruined it, and he left me five months ago. Because I have been recovering from a surgery, I have not been able to work out, and I can only go to yoga once or twice a week, so I don't feel great about my body right now. I feel quite lost about what to do with my life, and not in that "I am bravely venturing into the unknown," kind of way, but much more like, "I don't know what the hell to do anymore."

There are good things too, and I am certainly able to see them. I am directing a play a friend of mine wrote and it is an amazing experience. I have found a theatre group that deeply nourishes my artist's soul and I look forward to seeing them the way a child looks forward to jumping in the ocean. My surgery was successful, and my body has been relearning how to function, which has been an important lesson for me in patience and compassion with myself.  I have worked in jobs that have taught me a lot about who I am, what I can do, and what I want, and I have met some incredible people along the way. There have been messages everywhere, and the post-break-up growth has been crucial to my understanding of myself.

There is a ton of sadness, though, and it is challenging to keep it from blinding me. I try to loot at a birthday as an opportunity to reflect and set intentions. I do not know what mine could be yet, but if I think of some by Saturday I'll post them. I am a fan, after all, of letting things shift, of watching heaviness and negativity do their thing and then leave so that something else can come in. Birthdays are hard for me, there's no way around that. I'm sitting with the difficulties, I'm acting out on them at times, and I am looking ahead. It's only the 26th time I've had to do this. Maybe by the 52nd I'll get the hang of it...

Until then, come have a beer with me on Saturday and tell me I don't have to smile for you.

This is every metaphor for every feeling. It is also my footprint, staged for this picture, at a beach in LA.

*Thoughts Simply Arise also has a facebook page now! Go like it!*