I’m coming up on birthday #34 on August 8, and while the last year has been tough, it’s also been exhilarating and full of accomplishments. Birthdays mean a lot to me, though, regardless of the events of any previous year.
I was born August 8, 1988, or 8-8-88, and birthdays have always been special days for me. I don’t care about my unusual birthdate now, but others in my life have envied it.
When I was a kid, I tried to exploit the notoriety of this date, and when I had my “golden birthday” at age eight in 1996, it was a big deal. My teachers from back then still remember my birthday, and my parents hired a local folksinger to come to our house and play music for my birthday with my acquaintances.
It was one of the happier days of my childhood because of my love of music and my longing for community. I didn’t have a real community until college, and that day for a fleeting moment it felt like I had one.
Still, birthdays and holidays can be triggering for many grieving people no longer in their lives, and for me, that seems especially true. I’ve had two birthdays in the last decade where I’ve learned of friends’ deaths, one an overdose and the other a suicide early in the pandemic, and it hurts remembering that those two people are no longer alive for me to interact with in any way.
Then there were great birthdays spending time with people who left my life without saying a word. The person I’m thinking of took me out for breakfast at a time when I was severely sick; he was special to me, but he ghosted me when my grandmother was dying, so I’m sure it’s for the best that he’s no longer in my life.
So, for me birthdays don’t always signal a good time had by all, but they can still remind me of times of triumph in my life. When I turned thirty, it felt like a big deal because I didn’t always think I would make it that long or come so far in my lifetime. The bittersweetness I felt that birthday was compounded by the fact that it was my first birthday without my incredibly loyal grandmother, but I also knew that she was proud of me whether I was making strides in my life or not.
And I was making strides, living alone in an apartment without family and growing at a job I landed around the time of her death. I will always love her, and I know that she’s watching over me, always proud of me, no matter what.
It’s been four years since that birthday, and every special occasion reminds me of her, as many songs do. But I’m managing better every year, and I look forward to continuing to learn what I can accomplish in this life.
So, in this time of mass tragedy, I wanted to look at the positive things I’ve accomplished in the last year to remind myself of how much I’ve done and how much there is to look forward to.
In the last year, in no particular order:
1. I chaired a high school communications contest and did a kick-ass job coordinating judges, awards, and all sorts of details.
2. I worked on accepting grief and circumstances that I can’t control and on getting out of my own head and being useful to others.
3. I worked on some really difficult relationships to help them heal.
4. I placed higher than ever in a national communications contest, including a Second Place for Headlines and two Honorable Mentions for Personal Opinion Columns and for a Chapter in a Book!
5. I got rehired by the university where I was laid off years ago--they recruited me for a better position.
6. I got paid for my writing for the first time and for several times after that, including with a blog you are reading now.
7. I reached two years of sobriety (from something that does use the word “sobriety”)!
8. I got back on the radio as a DJ at CHIRP Radio.
9. I have read likely well over twenty books in the last year, including several for an article I’m writing on music history books of the last decade.
10. I recently applied to a full-time job at my undergraduate alma mater as their Writing Center Director!
So, I have a lot to be proud of! I’m very excited, and I look forward to continuing to share this journey with all of you.