Thoughts on Birthday Sadness

I'm a lyric junkie. That high school assignment where you wrote an essay about a song, was perhaps the one enjoyable essay I ever wrote. I picked Josh Groban’s “Now or Never"-- It’s a song about a relationship in crisis. And at 17, I had never been in an actual relationship....so, I don't really know why I was so drawn to the song.

For whatever reason, I found the imagery really compelling (still do). I kind of have a thing for on-the-brink relationship songs: "Pills" by The Perishers, "Poison and Wine" by The Civil Wars.  The lyrics in all three of these songs are absolutely stunning. I dunno, I guess I’m drawn to the bravery of acknowledging a failure and fighting for your relationship-- when the one you fight is yourself. At least that’s my take. The endings are kind of ambiguous. You can't tell whether they stay together or not, but in my mind they always make it.

Recently, it's my relationship with optimism that's on the ropes. I find myself listening to "24" by Switchfoot over and over again. Not coincidentally, I turned one score and four this past week. The plans, work, victories, rejections all seemed to culminate in one moment of birthday anticlimax that this song captures perfectly. “Life is not what I thought it’d be, twenty-four hours ago.” It's the anthem of my age. The opportunities that didn’t arise, the resolutions that floundered. The things I haven't conquered yet. "Twenty-four failures in twenty-four tries." At 24, I've had enough years of adulthood to know that I'm not nearly as good at saving myself as I had thought.

"Jacob Wrestles the Angel" By Gustav Dore

“I wrestled the angel for more than a name.”-- Like Jacob in the bible, I seek for more than recognition. The angel renamed Jacob,  Israel-- Hebrew for "wrestles with God"-- to signify his struggle. But even then, Jacob wouldn’t give up the fight. He hadn't obtained the goal of that struggle. He continued to strive until he received his blessing. I need to achieve what I've set my mind to, and that is the source of my ruminations.

It turns out birthday sadness isn't about mortality or aging, at least not for me. Birthday sadness is my maturity asserting itself. I can't be pleased about myself for merely existing the way I could as a kid. I ate, slept, breathed for another three hundred days--bake me a cake. 

I have to actually do stuff to be proud of myself now.

It's not that I don't have people to recognize me, because I have so many wonderful people cheering me on. It's the goals themselves that allude me. Finished with school, I've ran out of graders and external benchmarks. I'm left to dream up my own measures and my own bars to clear. ...I'm at the mercy of my own opinion of myself.

And that's why birthday sadness is a thing.

But like I said, I always assume they make it. My optimism was only briefly dead. Ressurrected. "I am the second man now." And straight happy-go-lucky has been replaced with an informed optimism. Failures always accompany success, and that's just the way of things. There aren't periods where good and bad are neatly divided. The fabric of life isn't striped, it's marbled--the good and bad happen concurrently.

So no more waiting. There won't be a time when I'm less busy or more resilient. Less scared or more prepared. For most things in life, preparation comes with the doing of a thing and not in the analysis.

So here's to 24. I'm looking forward to the "symphony in 24 parts"  and with more than a casual request for the spirit to lift me up where I fall short.

-Stephanie