Another Year Downnnnnn!

Take that life!

I don’t remember much about my childhood. My dad died when I was 15 and I guess somewhere along the way I decided that if I repressed most of my life I wouldn’t be as sad about it. Turns out I’m still sad and pissed I can’t remember a lot. Oops.

I remember a birthday that was aquatic themed. I don’t know how old I was, but I remember that my mom and aunt had a big blow up plastic blue and white bubble with fans inside of it in the entire basement of the home I grew up in. There was seaweed and other fish tank/oceanic features. The fans kept the bubble up and me and my friends were fish. I think I was a 5 or 6 year old fish maybe? Maybe less? I don’t think fish keep track of their lives as much as we do anyway so it doesn’t really matter.

My birthday is at the end of November, always a risk to do anything outside. When I was in 8th grade I had bonfire and slumber party. I invited 4 boys to come to the bonfire and they strictly had to leave by 9pm and the girls stayed… I also think some girls who were lesser friends of mine left by 9 too and didn’t get the coveted 8th grade slumber party invite…. which makes me want to puke thinking about now. 8th grade sucks. I invited my current crush, my best friend’s current crush and a couple other boys to keep them company. We played sardines (hide and seek in reverse) around my family’s property for hours before the sun went down and after with flashlights. Later I learned that my friend was fingered by a boy while they hid together behind a tree…. turns out a 9pm curfew don’t mean shit and I threw a rager.

When I was a freshman I turned 15 and I had another party with a similar set up. One of my best friends showed up about an hour before anyone else and I took her to my aunt’s basement where we were going to party, playing dance dance revolution and drinking energy drinks all night to stay up. I ran down the stairs and with excitement, jumped from the fourth stair to the ground and instead hit my head on the doorway of the stairs, fell the 4 steps down on my ass, blacked out and woke up to Maddy saying “dude, dude, dude” to make sure I was okay. It was probably the first concussion I had ever gotten but no way in hell I told anyone! I was there to party, not go to the doctor! She’s not gonna be embarrassed like that on her day y’all!

Later that night my dad, who had been so wildly depressed for a couple years, had what I now think was a manic swing of some sort and bought me a car and gave it to me. It was a little white Camry and the front seats had been replaced with leather orange and light blue seats because I was OBSESSED with the Lady Vols basketball team- looking back, specifically Candace Parker’s arms and winning is hot. About a year and a half after this birthday I’d run that car off the road and land it sideways in a ditch and the Camry took it like a TANK! Barely a scratch as I climbed out of the window like it was a race car to run across the street away from it before it exploded the way every movie so honestly portrays. 9 months after this birthday my dad killed himself and the car would always remind me of him. Thankfulness and sadness mushing together into a heavy ball of goo in my stomach, the way it always will be.

4 birthdays ago I was talking to my friend Courtney about what we should do and she came up with the idea of Carpe Denim, which ever since then has been my excuse to invite everyone I love to be in one place at once and a theme tends to make people commit more. Last night was the fourth annual Carpe Denim- every bitch from wall to wall was in denim… god of silliness be praised! I played music and watched my friends do the same. I caught up with people I love and drank an uncountable amount of margs and jello shots. On the way home I fully wept in the way that an overwhelming amount of love, support, and kindness can make you weep.

This morning I woke up to my actual birthday. I made coffee and let the dogs out while my favorite person wrapped my gifts for me in that last minute way that reminds me how similar we are. The last gift I opened was a print I bought her over 3 years ago when we were just friends, in a frame, reminding me of everything I believe in life. That it is probably both. To cut myself some slack, that I won’t figure out where to place my joy and my sadness in neat boxes under the bed, but that its just both…Deep and shallow, sad and happy, cynical and joyful, birthdays in fishtanks and around bonfires, alone and in community, boring lame outfits and all denim, all of the actually terrible shit that happens when you live and living…..

It is both. Thank god for that. There is too much all at once for it to be anything else than just both.. all things…. living. I am very happy to experience it all tumbling towards me and out of me as I live and count another year of life. I am so happy to be here.

A happy my birthday to you.

p.s. If you don’t throw yourself a party on your birthday and take a moment to reflect your whole experience of living you are missing out bro.

Love you. I’ll leave you with my recently framed, perfect gift. What a relief that everything can be both.

Artwork from @raniban on instagram.

https://raniban.co/