Birthday

And so it's your birthday. And here you are, another year older, and you are getting to an age where people start having certain expectations of you, of what your life should look like. Up to this age, you may have resisted those expectations and shrugged off a "normal" life with a 401 K plan and stock options but, you can't help but wonder if you should explain why you, say, aren't married, don't own property or have health insurance and, furthermore, why it doesn't look like you will anytime soon.

And so it's your birthday and you have to admit with each passing year it's becoming just that little bit harder to jump around from job-to-job and to live in an apartment with two roommates pursuing "your art". Loath as you are to admit it, there's a part of you that deeply craves the white picket fence (a post-modern white picket fence, of course) and a cul-de-sac. If your being honest, there's part of you that would trade it in for the idea that you might feel secure and stable especially after you pick up a paper and it seems like everything you read speaks to a world on a tightrope, net-free, with chaos looming down below. You realize on this, your birthday, that one day your parents won't be around to, actually, write you a check and take you out to dinner to celebrate, one day, you'll have to figure it all out on your own. You can't help but compare yourself to your mother at this age and realize she was raising her third child and had already been married for ten years. You've dated three different guys this year alone and, if your being honest, two of them were just flings.

And so it's your birthday and you try to enjoy the dinner your parents are treating you to and try not to think too hard about whether or not you should be apologizing for not having accomplished as much as you wanted to at your age. And so it's your birthday and you realize your life is what it is and just maybe you don't have anything to apologize for. You blow out the candle, eat the buttercream cake you bought yourself, stop feeling so ashamed (what's the point?) and get ready to start another year.