All my life, especially when I was little, I remember such a kerfuffle being made about Turning Thirty ™. Lots of jokes, but also lots of angst and lamenting.
I remember my mother being so upset when she turned 30. I was a month or so into kindergarten. My continuity of memory picks up at about the point my mother was 29 years old. Over the past year or so, my memories of my mother’s 29th year have been overlaid on my real-time experiencing of my own, creating a double exposure that has been somewhat disorienting even before the haze of unreality that has shadowed the last year or so. We live in strange times.
Today is my 30th birthday. I am no longer standing on the verge. I’ve jumped. My canopy is full, and the scenery defies description.
I never expected to see it.
I never expected to make it here.
Between the health problems that have loomed over my life as my own personal Sword of Damocles, various other things experienced early in life, and the ever-present marking time waiting for the proverbial other shoe that characterizes life in modern-day America, I never expected this. In my heart, I never believed it would come.
I never expected to have a car and a license. I never expected to be a homeowner. I never expected to have my conception of my dream job. I never expected to have acted. I never believed I’d learn an instrument. There are so many things I could list. I never expected any of them. My lava lamp. The bunnies in my yard. My Beyoncé. My vuvuzela and air horn.
Amy Winehouse once sang of someone living life like it was a run-through. Though I’m always given to preparation, analysis, and backup plans, there are no run-throughs for life. We get one shot at this. We must live accordingly.
I spent today in Cincinnati. While on the road, shopping, eating Dippin’ Dots, stopping for gas and a Slush Puppie later on, all day long, the people of my life have rained down good wishes, love, and care. I am in receipt of cards, texts, FB messages, tweets, calls, possibly a carrier pigeon or 2, all bringing joy and love and hope.
The portrait of my life is now a double exposure, but the love and care you give makes it luminous, and is what makes it worth both watching and living.