Photo: Vinny Defelice.
I get very existentialist on my birthday.
Or the new year.
Or any notable date for that matter.
I believe this stems from me equating these significant days of the year to pinnacle points that I thought certain milestones in my life should have been achieved by. This is a flawed mindset that I have carried with me ever since I started using my age as leverage to get loved ones to stop pestering me about when I was going to get a boyfriend to bring around.
“My dad met my mom when he was 19, so talk to me then.”
“My mom met my dad when she was 21, so come see me about this then.”
When the clock struck midnight on my 22nd birthday, I was the saddest I have ever been entering into a new chapter of my life. I distinctly remember laying in my bed enveloped by my covers in the darkness as I watched my phone turn from 11:59 pm to 12:00 am (or 23:59 to 00:00 since my settings are that of the military standard to channel my Irish roots) and was simultaneously washed over with grief as if I had lost a loved one. This sinking feeling of failure could not even be aided by my sisters and their friends barging into my room while blasting “22” by Taylor Swift and bombarding me with all the praises of “Happy Birthday” and well wishes. My empty “thank you”s and forced smiles were convincing enough to eventually get them out of my room and back to their own quarters, allowing me to be swallowed whole once again by my self-loathing. It was official: I had finally run out of excuses to prolong my timeline and, just like in every other facet in my life, I was officially late to the original plans I had laid out for years beforehand that I pictured my life to go according to. Of all the things I have procrastinated on in my life, this was one that I had not accounted for or cushioned with a Plan B… I felt lost as to what direction I was to go in from here.
A pity party was the only type of festivity that I was in the mood to partake in for the following 24 hours that ensued.
However, when the sun went to sleep and I could begin the 364-day-countdown to my following birthday, I had an epiphany that buried a fiery and passionate promise deep within my being that I would never allow myself to feel as low as I did on the 8th of March in 2016. Why would I mourn the loss of my past years when I should be celebrating the sheer blessing of seeing another? This newfound mindset served as a drastic contrast to my proceeding Jordan Year as I was instead wrapped up in love (rather than sheets) from my friends and family at a surprise birthday party thrown for me at 13th Step.
Fast forward five years to the eve of my 28th birthday into which I still keep this feeling at the forefront of my mind, especially in moments like right now where I am penning this eulogy to the final moments of my 27th year instead of penning my signature onto the receipt of a closed bar tab. Regardless of the physical absence of my family and friends, it is safe to say that the amorous displays of affection are still prevalent as seen in the present (both in the time and gift sense) and kind gestures of early messages, cards, and packages that have arrived for me tonight. I am on the precipice of the age in which I previously pictured having my first or second child, but I am nowhere near the level of anguish I had been immersed in six revolutions ago. In fact, I am immensely grateful for the occurrences that have brought me to where I am today because without the happenstance of this initial detour, I would not have known this level of adoration that I am pleasantly and thankfully flooded with each and every day that passes. This passion for compassion has molded me into the individual that literally breathes life into me with every awakening of the sun and welcoming of the moon, overwhelmed by emotions so overpowering that they usually bring me to tears from the inability to contain or express the majority of them in a sensible manner.
I am who I am because of those who I know.
This is beyond cheesy and something that I should have grown out of saying years ago as my vocabulary and verbiage have exponentially expanded with age, but the universe truly works in mysterious ways. Although I will never be able to predict the next move to be made, I believe I have become better at reading the subtle mannerisms that it drops every now and then to hint towards my upcoming trajectory. With that being said, I can feel it in my core that she’s truly got my back this year since my manifestations of the future are becoming more tangible in my daydreams, from the visual aspect of bringing plans to life with my looming team to the way I’ll emote when laid-out aspirations have been achieved.
I am forever indebted to my derailment of plans for they have rerouted me to where I am meant to be.
Thank you to 27 for the glorious and debilitating highs and lows that you have brought me. You were far from perfect to me, but you were perfect for me by far. The imminent final even-numbered year of my 20s has a lot to live up to, but thank goodness you set a pristine example of what to do (and what not to do) over the clean slate that the next 365 days will bring.
27, I love you past my final breath and back!
<3 27-year-old Tay