The 29th

There’s something about being almost twenty-nine that has put me into a tail-spin that I wasn’t expecting. Sure, my birthdays usually effect me, and yes, I’m a little dramatic and it gets worse the older I get, but the last one that really put me off aging was twenty-five.

I’m not really sure what it was about that one–it’s the one that means the early twenties are over, and the late twenties have started, but I didn’t really feel any more mature or together. The magic I expect aging to have over my maturity and quality of life has yet to actually occur. You would think I would stop clinging to it, but I’m very childish in my expectations of birthday wishes.

So, is twenty-nine finally my year? The magic year where I find the career I was meant to have, the man who won’t use me as emotional fire hydrant, a pair of three inch heels that won’t pinch my feet, and possibly contract some strange condition that causes my metabolism to completely change into that of a super model’s? Yes, I think those things are possible. As my friend Gina would say, "You have choices right now. You may not like your choices. But you have them."

I say ‘bleh!’ to my choices? What if I rebel and decide to not make choices but invent choices? That’s right. Invent. Because I see twenty-nine as a make or break year. I’ve had some time to think about this in the last few weeks since my life has gone through some…challenging changes…employment, relationship, digestion, hair…the usual…and I’ll be honest, since all I’ve been doing is staying in bed and watching court t.v. and reading US Weekly I really got a chance to think about my life and what is important.

So here’s the deal with twenty-nine. I understand that plenty of people make it with no problems. But a chosen few just can’t take it. Jimmy H. bit it two months before his 29th birthday, Janis was twenty-seven, Buckley made it to thirty-one, and Edie Sedgwick was twenty-eight. Ryan Adams wrote an album called 29. It had nothing to do with the age, but for argument’s sake, let’s pretend it did. It had to do with suicide. That’s pretty macabre. So, if I still don’t have a career, no kids, no family, where does that leave me when my friends inevitably aim a flaming cake of twenty-nine candles at me (that I will probably be viewing with one eye shut)?

Here’s where, and I mean this in the least sarcastic way possible. With my dang self. Don’t get me wrong, I love my friends more than I will ever love anyone, which frankly is kind of a problem for another day, but they can’t be my arms and legs when I decide to sit out while my life goes on around me. They would, without me asking, and so would my family, but they shouldn’t have to. Because they’re not going to be as good at being the twenty-nine me as I will.

The past two days I have done what I always do when I decide that my life is a big steaming turd of suck. It’s not that I take any more punches than anyone else, I’m just not good at getting through them. I just kind of shut down. I get a bizarre sense of power from not showering. I wallow and wiggle in sadness. I coat and saturate myself in it. It becomes tangible. And I start to get really smelly. But my friend Vanessa burst in last night holding staples of break-up/job collapse/family death survival (Tecate and shears) and told me right out that under no circumstances was I allowed to continue to be a big fat baby. When a single mother (a fantastic one, by the way) who manages to work full time, raise her great kid, and just finished school, and is younger tells me to suck it up, I kind of have to listen. It makes my no-job situation and relationship-drama seem really stupid. Then Frisk came over and told me I have until Monday to pull my head out. They love me.

I woke up this morning determined to be Bed McBederton again, no bathing, no communication with the outside world, enjoying the filth of my apartment, imagining myself with chin hair and cats crawling all over me…then, before I knew it, I was making coffee….dang it. Then, I did the stupid dishes. Cleaned my apartment. Made the bed. I’m craving a shower with all my being. I’m trying to remember what my face looks like with makeup…I did my nails. And then I started writing.

I have no idea what is going to happen in the next few months, but I know that I could sit here all day at my little iBook with no five key and write and write and write, for free, with no one reading it, and be totally happy. So whatever happens when twenty-nine hits, I’ll be ready for it.