“You’re in your early 20s so it makes sense that we’re catching this now.”
“You’re at an age where you have to be cautious.”
“You could open a door that you won’t be able to close.”
I turn 21 in 9 days and I have that same pit in my stomach that forms just before my birthday. This year I think it’s because I am reaching the age my therapist and psychiatrist have emphasized is a “developing” age: The one where the possibility of me being something else grows. Of being schizoaffective. I’m not as of now, but it’s something I’m supposed to be keeping an eye on in case I am. It’s something that I have been trying to deal with in a healthy way, but it’s been clawing at the door in the back of my mind for the past two weeks since I found out. Maybe that’s the reason I want to celebrate this year in a way that I’ll never forget because there’s a looming cloud of fear that is trying to convince me this will be the last birthday I have the opportunity to actually do that.
That’s a thought I have not acknowledged until now. For the past year, I’ve been waiting in anticipation for this moment and yet all I can think about is how much of an inconvenience it is for me. After one day of planning it out the first thought that came into my mind was “Who am I doing this for?”
For me? For my friends? For the idea that I need to be over-the-top in order to fulfill some kind of childhood hole that’s been eating away at me for years? Do I want this or am I trying to convince myself this is something I should want?
I remember for my 20th birthday I had a lot of guilt leading up to it. I don’t know why — or maybe I do — but all I could think about was how guilty I felt. Guilty that I was growing up and leaving behind a part of my life. That sounds ridiculously prolific and trying to hard to be deep, but it’s the truth. One of the main reasons I felt guilty was because I was growing up and leaving a part of my life behind, a part of my life I never thought I’d grow old enough to consider the past. The irony is that today I feel like I am back in that part of my life.
I feel this sense of pressure to prove that I am not the socially awkward, “mature for her age” introvert who needed someone with more confidence and charisma to bring her “out of her shell.” I can’t tell if the plan I had all along was for me or to prove something to myself.
Maybe I’m feeling pressure to heal a part of my inner child that I only recently discovered was broken. I don’t hold resentment, but a cloud looms over my head looking back at it. I’ve spent most of my birthdays alone with my parents or in Flagstaff in mourning for the anniversary of my grandfather’s passing.
My parents and I have always been low-key about birthdays, never going all out for them. Neither of them ever really celebrated their own so I was allowed one birthday party — after excessively begging for one. I chose the age 10 (because double digits were such a big deal) and it was the first time in my life I spent my birthday doing something big. The first time since then I’ve ever planned something was my trip to New York when I turned 19 and even that started as another birthday plan alone. I don’t remember most of it if I’m being completely honest, but I can recall feeling that same pit in my stomach.
Most of the birthdays that I can remember have been accompanied by a trip to Flagstaff. My grandfather passed away before I was born, but his death anniversary is 2/24, the day right after my birthday. There was one year when I ate my birthday dinner in the car on the way up to Flag. Going to the cemetery every year near my birthday was not something I ever thought twice about, it was something that was important for us to do and since birthdays weren’t a big deal anyway, why should I consider it? I only really thought of how associating death and mourning with the day I was born affected me last year. When I turned 20 I remember that guilt — that guilt that I was not going to Flagstaff with my parents to be there with them. The guilt of not holding family as the number one thing in my heart. The guilt of being happy I was alive when my grandmother wasn’t. The guilt that I have spent my life hating everything that I couldn't see the good right in front of me.
I feel guilty knowing that I have never given a proper gift. I feel guilty that I have always compared how friends see my birthday to how they see others. I feel guilty making something about me. This year I feel preemptive guilt, that I will regret not going wild and having fun. Because at the end of the day, I am afraid this will be the last birthday I have the opportunity to do that.
There’s a need to be my own biggest fan because for almost 21 years I have felt that if I wasn’t then no one else would be. That’s the real fear, isn’t it? The fear that if I don’t make a big deal then no one will. If I had an objective third party next to me then would probably explain how irrational a fear that is, but I’d refute with how I invited everyone to summer parties because I wanted a reason for them to invite me to theirs. How I would purposefully stay late at hangout spots so I wouldn’t be left out. How I would convince myself I found a best friend only to spend hours crying over them. I know deep down I am internalizing a lot of anxiety that has little validity with the people I have in my life now, but I can’t shake the feeling and the more it stews in the back of my mind, the harder it becomes to convince myself it’s all in my head.
It really is all in my head. The fear of “losing my mind’ before I get to 22. The fear of guilt and disappointing the people in my life. The fear that I am only loved for the stories I tell. The fear that I am alone in this world and the fear that I am okay with that. The fear that one day everyone around me is going to realize that I am not deserving of their love.
The first time I watched Bojack Horseman I remember the lines “You didn’t know me. Then you fell in love with me. And now you know me.” That stuck with me like a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe. A nuisance that you pretend you can’t feel but it squishes with every step. I am afraid that as I am known, I will be less loved. I know in my heart that this is not true, but as I have grown and reflected on who I have been and who I am now, I can’t help but pinpoint every moment where I have been a shitty person, and how am I to deny that those things aren’t who I am?
I turn 21 in 9 days and I am afraid — yet excited. Despite the overwhelming overshare of feelings, I am doing better than I ever have before, and you would think with that thought, I’d have more faith in the idea that I will be okay.