Birthdays

It's the beginning of April. Three weeks from today is my 35th birthday. Our county just sent the update that absolutely no gatherings can occur other than with people in your own home, through at least the end of the month. Four days before my birthday is my sister's birthday. A week after my birthday is my dad's, and my mom's a week after that, with mother's day right in the mix of it all. Will we all still be in our own homes through it all? Normally the family gathers for a big dinner and we celebrate and exchange gifts. Normal does not exist this year.

Birthdays are always a time of reflection for me. Sometimes these reflections are peaceful and filled with gratitude, but sometimes they have been wrought with doubt and fear. My 20's were the worst. I wondered if I'd ever find a job I enjoyed, ever be self-sufficient, ever find love, ever get to have kids, ever be happy.

My 29th birthday ended with me weeping alone in my car. I went to breakfast with one friend, spend the afternoon with another, and was about to meet a group of friends inside the restaurant where I was parked, but I could not bring myself to enter. All I wanted was to go home and climb in bed - so I did.

Although my 20's were filled with pain, they were also the years of some of my greatest growth. I spent those years moving from avoiding my pain to listening to it, from fighting with it to embracing it, from hating it to being held by it. Like the sea, pain's tides would ebb and flow, sometimes gently coming and going, sometimes bringing waves that would crash over me with such force I was sure I would drown. My 20s were some of my darkest years, but also years that I look back on with awe for the courage and resilience I found that I didn't know I had.

Gratefully, the intensity of the storm of pain inside me subsided substantially over the years. I learned to swim, to move with the wind and the waves, to accept the help offered by others when I couldn't make it on my own, to breathe. When the tide was out and the sun was high I learned to rest, to laugh, to play.

Sometimes the waves still crash over me. I still need the help and support of others (always please). Sometimes I still forget how to breathe. But I know now that someway, somehow, it will be okay. Because after my short 35 years so far, someway, somehow, it's always ended up okay. The pain is real, and hard, but good. It reminds me to grieve, to feel, and to love. Little by little the ocean has washed away pieces of my walls, my armor, my defenses, and left more of me.