The Ides of May

Happy anniversary to my first tantrum

26 years and 1 hour ago, I was born. At 2:14am on May 15th, 1997 I came into the world kicking and screaming because I was sooo upset about climate change.

But for the next hour I am still technically 25. This is crucial because once I turn 26 I will no longer be 25. This is important because 25 is significant and 26 is not. This is because the world runs largely on numbers that are factors of 5 and so something like a 26 is numerically insignificant. Am I losing you? It’s my birthday.

26 years ago I had not yet been born. I hadn’t yet cried my first cry, pooped my first poop, or seen my first sunset. It would be months before I saw my first sunset because apparently babies can’t lift up their own heads for a while. 

I have just decided that I probably won’t post this on the internet. Ironic seeing as it’s being typed on a Google Document. Google owns all my IP which is awesome because I need someone to catalog my brain and figure out what the hell is going on in there. 

This year in recap: I performed at a comedy venue I have dreamed of since moving here, only to realize afterwards that maybe it is just a basement in a world full of basements. I learned that my favorite part of performing isn’t getting the audience to laugh, it’s hugging my friends after my set. I love making people laugh but not as much as I love telling my best friends a secret and then eating the rest of their BLT.

This year marks the first time I am getting paid to write. My day job has become a creative outlet, and I have this newsletter to thank. And there are over 200 of you now living here in Pillowtown! Enough to skew a student government election in a corrupt public high school! Enough to do the wave at a minor league baseball game! We can do all this and more, see me after class.

By now you might have realized that since you are reading this, hopefully on your phone on the toilet in the morning as is my intention, I did in fact post this on the internet. This has been my year of embracing that everything I want is on the other side of embarrassment. Sorry, I mean to say that everything I want is embarrassing. And that has to be ok because we are alive for such a short time and I cannot spend one moment of it pretending to enjoy boring shit. Maybe this will be my year of decadence. Of cheese plates and fuzzy slippers and fizzy wine. 

26 feels insignificant to me because there are no notable sports legends whom I can align myself with. Lebron and Jordan and Kobe are reserved for the early twenties. The go-getters and the risk takers. The feeling of being 23 and invincible and strong and powerful and sexy. I’m 26 now. Practically withering away. My knees crack when I bend down and I got a suspicious mole removed. I eat dates every day because they’re “sweet enough” and I watch YouTube tutorials on how to make the best farro in a rice cooker. I’m cooking my farro in chicken broth, can you even believe that? No 24 year old is doing that. They’re busy having sex on a ferris wheel or riding a flaming dirt bike off a mountain.

People say 26 is still your mid-twenties and that you’re not in your late 20’s until you turn 27. I think you’re born and then you die and all the junk in the middle is just figuring out what to get for lunch. 

26 is going to be the year of maybe. The year of yeah, ok! Because the year of yes is exhausting and sometimes I don’t want to say yes. Sometimes I want to stay home on a Friday night and watch coach Eric Taylor lead the Dillon Panthers to victory in the pouring rain. Sometimes I want to go to a new restaurant with my friends and complain about how wine is $14 a bottle in the store but $15 a glass at a restaurant. Someone will say that alcohol makes them anxious and everyone will nod. 

The year of maybe is not ambivalence. We’re committing to not committing. Because the only thing we know is that we don’t know. And we also know that Oreos are vegan. Perhaps that is the one truth in this little life. Anyway.

Happy birthday to me and to anyone else who wants to start their new year with me today. May you always have the strength to say yes. Or no. Or maybe. Maybe? Sure.