four years of birthday memories: a reflection

it is generally a mystery to me about whether this blog is for you or for me. this post is self-indulgent and i recognize that.

one month ago i spent my twenty-second birthday with alyssa, blade, josiah, charity, kevin, and nick. i had been priming my roll-top desk white, running errands, and helping alyssa put the finer touches on my burgercake, which came to her in a dream. days before, i had signed my first year-long lease, and was still making peace with the huge chunk of money no longer in my bank account. turning twenty-two with those friends around me, with a roommate who doesn't mind going the distance to create something as ridiculous (and delicious) as a burgercake, somehow has made me feel more grown up. i have friends, i have a place to call my own, i am going to a church i really like, i have a job to go to every day or so. while i'm still trying to figure out much about my future, i finally feel settled in the present.

a year and one month ago i was living in chicago. it had been an up-and-down summer: i love to be in the city, but my photography and drawing classes ended and i was lonely. i was doing round two of an internship with saatchi, but the character of the office had changed from round one. only a handful of people knew me, and i spent most days doing nothing but looking for images no one could really use. frankly, i hated it. for my birthday, my parents sent me a singing tin (not kidding: when the lid is removed from the tin it plays "happy birthday") of cookies and a little bouquet of flowers while i was dinking around at the office. i was overjoyed and shared a cookie with everyone i had learned the name of. i went out to dinner with a sorority sister of my mom's that night. we'd been reintroduced earlier in the year from our previous meeting when i was too young to speak or remember, and instantly warmed to each other. i ordered no alcohol, much to the confusion of both my host and my waiter. "you're turning twenty-one today! certainly you should get something." i just don't have a taste for it, i replied. i grew up around it, i have no stigmas about it, i just prefer water to the taste of wine. after dinner, i biked home, packed up a gift to mail to a friend in australia, and started to pack my own room. although it wasn't a birthday gift, it was my greatest joy to leave the apartment in the city for my hometown in arkansas.

two years and one month ago i was recovering from a cold in my fourth week of studies in sydney. in the two previous days i'd been laid up with a bum knee and a head cold that made me take whatever medicine my roommate brought and excessive naps on the living room couch. i don't get sick often , but the day before my birthday i believe i briefly passed out while trying to cross a room--one moment i was standing, the next i was on the floor and my arm hurt. most of my delirious and lethargic bouts passed on that day, by my birthday i was almost back to fully-functioning. my australian friend, who i would mail a package to a year later, made me a birthday cake. everyone who was home ate some with us, and our resident tuba-player burst in from the kitchen playing a big, brassy rendition of "happy birthday" while they sang. i remember wanting to smile bigger than my face, thankful for my new friends, for my recovering body, for bright colors and chocolate, for the tuba, for the comfort they all provided in my new temporary home.

three years and one month ago i spent the day in a car with my mom. i began sophomore year of college early, thanks to my involvement in the campus newspaper, the record. for some reason, they wanted the assistant layout editor to help with the freshmen orientation issue of the paper, set to come out when the freshmen arrived. so mom and i piled all my things into her car and set out north. to my memory mom and i had never made the trip together before, but we loved having all the time in the car to talk, to sleep, to sing, to fill me in on family events that aren't often spoken of, to muse of the coming year and all the things that might come of it. we reached wheaton in the evening, and decided to see little miss sunshine as a birthday gift. mom and i both loved it, and still think of each other and my birthday when we think of it.

four years and one month ago i turned eighteen, a pseudo-adult. i was in wisconsin, at honeyrock camp, on wheaton passage with fifty someodd other incoming wheaton college freshmen. the large camp was hosting multiple groups that week, and another organization had set balloons and colorful decorations on the tables in the dining hall for lunch. few knew me at that time, but someone orchestrated a birthday song for me, and while i'm certain i was a little embarrassed to have all the attention during the song, i looked at all the balloons and let myself believe for a moment that they were for me. even if they weren't by design, i took them as a sign that God loved me, and had arranged them Himself. i still believe this to be true.
my mother also had this foresight and decided my family should celebrate my birthday before i left for college. or, more accurately, before i left to become a freshman and my older brother brian left to be a junior in college. see, i was brian's second birthday gift, born on the same day two years apart. in our younger years this was a problem and we'd alternate who got to have his/her friends over on the actual day each year. as we aged and our friends and celebration styles changed, it was simply family tradition to celebrate us together. personally, i never minded. this year, there was cake, there were gifts, there were respective significant-others. brian would go on to marry his, while i would break up with mine less than a month later. i'm certain we watched a movie, i'm certain there was laughter and joy and smiles.
my best high school friends and then-boyfriend also saw my birthday absence coming. over our senior year, we'd started a tradition of celebrating each successive birthday in ridiculous, surprising, and thoughtful ways. i laugh while thinking of them now: nighttime canvassing a lawn with balloons secured with bags of sand, invading a home or car with hand-drawn, exuberant, and creepy signs of joy and love. frankly, we created a fun all our own during those plots of silliness in ways only teenage girls can. as the last to celebrate turning eighteen in our circle during a hectic time of planning and packing for us all, i remember worrying out loud to my boyfriend that i would be forgotten for sure. "i won't even be here for my birthday, i just wonder if anyone will remember." he remained stoic and reassuring. i felt selfish for wanting to be celebrated in such a way, but that quirky celebration of birthdays brought us together and solidified us as lifelong friends. i didn't want to be left out. despite my doubts, they remembered. i went out one evening with my boyfriend, giving my girlfriends plenty of time to create, decorate, and hang a dozen pieces of posterboard over the second story landing of my house. they hid behind it until we arrived home, all the while having faux-arguments about boy's and my ETA and giggling about things they'd drawn on the banner--all of them were explained to me when i arrived. "this is Bible-y! he's a mascot for the Bible!" "this is all five of us drawn as if we were characters from harry potter!" "this is a doodle i did because i was running out of things to draw!" i still own the piece and am thankful for those friends.

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i wish i understood why i am enchanted with these yearly retrospects. i find myself playing them often, going backwards in my memory to draw some otherwise hidden conclusion about who i was, who i've become, or how i got here. there was a period last winter when i would tell myself the story of the last two years, over and over. as birthdays go, they are your own personal new year, time to reflect, make resolutions, drink celebration and smile with those you love.

as i write this, my good friend liz is about to celebrate her birthday surrounded by friends and and playing a ridiculous song. then, my biggest brother matt will have his birthday on the fifteenth. happy birthdays.