38, no, 37
I forgot that I was turning 37 this year. Somewhere in the middle of 2017, I decided that I was turning 38 this year. I was convinced that I was turning 38. I attempted to skip 37 altogether. I'm not sure why.
I also mostly skipped my birthday this year. Birthdays are a big deal at our house because birthdays were a big to deal to my mom, who always made birthdays special. She would let us choose our favorite dinner and dessert. We would have a birthday dinner. "Happy Birthday" would be sung off-key, and there were presents. Several years ago, I decided I needed a week to celebrate my birthday, so I now have a birthday week, which doesn't necessarily entail presents, but means that I can pick where to go to dinner and what kids movie we happen to watch that week. (Motherhood does define every aspect of my life. Thanks for asking.) I maybe get a whole day to myself to do what I want and eat what I want. It's usually a lovely week or at the very least a lovely day.
But this year, things didn't quite go as planned. The Friday before my birthday, white supremacists marched in Charlottesville VA with torches and no masks. On Saturday, Chris told me to avoid the news if I could, so I made him tell me what had happened. I scoured Twitter for information and came away nauseous. That same day, the Unite the Right rally ended (before it really began) in violence and the deaths of three people. Someone asked me if I was surprised, I said "no" and that I was heartbroken.
By Sunday, folks were asking me to write something smart about Charlottesville, but I had no idea what to say. I could talk about the history of white nationalists and protests, but I've done that before. I refused to write a hot take because that's not what I do. MSNBC cajoled me into talking about white nationalism on live television on Sunday afternoon. My anxiety was high; I managed to make it through the interview without passing out. After the interview, I sat in my car, sweaty and shaking, and realized that I don't want to be a talking head or a pundit or involved with live TV ever again.
By Monday, the day before my birthday, the press requests started. On the same day, my oldest kiddo fell and broke her wrist while we were leaving her school. We picked up the youngest kiddo and headed straight to Urgent Care. She ended up in a splint for a week and later a cast for five weeks.
Starting on my birthday and lasting for the next week, I did interviews with journalists for their stories on the alt-right or as background for their articles on white supremacy, multiple radio interviews, and signed on to do podcasts later. I talked and talked and talked about white supremacy and white supremacists until I never wanted wanted to talk about either again. I did all of this while also doing my own writing (kind of) and editing.
I did manage to have a birthday dinner with Chris and the kids and my parents and siblings, but my birthday came and went before I really noticed. It was just a day that marked a shift in age that I couldn't even get right.
I was overwhelmed by what was happening in our world. There was always more work to be done. There was always something else that needed attention. There was always some threat from the current administration to healthcare and so many other things. There was always something urgent and pressing and important.
August came and went, and so did September. And there was a hurricane, then another, an earthquake in Mexico, and another hurricane. Then, the youngest had a problem with his right hip, and then, x-rays uncovered a more serious problem with his left hip. And then, a massacre in Las Vegas. Our world feels unrelenting, likely because it is.
All the while, after each tragedy, national or personal, I kept telling myself if only I could make it through August, if only I could make it through September, and this week, I told someone if only I could make it through October and flinched as I said it. If only, if only, if only...is there an end in sight? Am I only able to make it through?
I realized that I've been saying the same thing, if only I could make it through, for the whole of 2017.
Is this how I want to live? And yet, I find myself repeating "if only I could make it through" as my mantra for existing in this shitshow of a year, in which calamity and catastrophe appear to be avidly stalking us. Is this the way life has always been and I, or maybe we, didn't notice? Or is there something about urgency and disaster of 2017 that makes it different?
I don't know, but it feels different. I feel 2017 in the marrow of my bones, and it makes me impossibly weary. I'm just tired. And yet, I've managed to get up each morning and face whatever the new day brings. If only I could make it through, I realized, isn't about fatalism but survival. It's about facing whatever shit and agony the day or week or month brings and moving forward, even if I don't want to. It's about carrying on despite the unrelenting slog. It's about my hope that I can make it and that you can too. It's about hope that eventually the world will be better, even if it seems pretty damn impossible now. It's about the hope that the next day or week or month can be better than the last. It's about hope. And hope, Emily Dickinson, reminds us is "a thing with feathers."
Maybe I just needed to finish 38, no, 37 years to remember that.
Things I've been reading:
Civil Rights protests have never been popular & how to protest without offending white people (spoiler alert: you can't). Essential oils in our age of anxiety. A story about Las Vegas that will break your heart. An interactive map of all of the mass shootings since Sandy Hook. Anti-black discrimination today is as bad as in 1989. Necessary read on women and emotional labor. A polar expedition that went berserk. Feeling less alone when you evaluate your career goals beyond academia. Hey, the personal essay isn't dead (it's just no longer so white). Claudine Rankine gives us the truth about Charlottesville. The ugly truth behind HGTV's fantasies. Identity theft and racial justice.
Things I've been writing:
A recent death threat and being a woman writer online. Being unruly. My letter in opposition to Graham Cassidy, which failed (thank goodness!). On motherhood and ambition. An older essay on hope & its possibilities.
And Grace Period: A Memoir in Pieces is now available in paperback! I wrote about it here.
My nephew drew me as a zombie (maybe a zombie spider), which accurately reflects how 2017 makes me feel.