3/19/2025

The night before a birthday is so eerie. Like you should already be celebrating, but… also reflecting? It has this weight, like the culmination of the last decades are about to disappear and the next day… you’re suddenly different.

So in my last solitary hours of 27, I ate two slices of leftover pepperoni pizza that made me physically ill and watched the new episode of Summer House. I drank a glass of flat Lambrusco out of a glass I haven’t cleaned since my last drink (last night).

It feels like a last hurrah. Surely at 28, I will not be keeping up this rat-like behavior. I won’t want to! My body will be a temple, graced only with fresh fruit for dessert and mineral water for dinner! I’m going to read so many books at 28! My frontal lobe will not only be formed, but molded in a shape so beautiful and statuesque it should be studied! Only good, clear thoughts from here on out :)

Right.

Suddenly tomorrow I won’t miss my ex girlfriend. I’ll immediately feel called to post my witty observations to tik tok once a day, every day. I won’t need a beta blocker to do standup. I will not be weighed down by the last 27 years of patterns, behaviors, anxieties.

I tried to journal after Summer House. You know, be intentional about my aging.

“What do I want out of 28?”

I had an acting teacher in college once, who said there were basic wants that every character (or person) has. Wants so uncomplicated that they become the thing that complicates things for them. I can’t remember the play for the life of me but she turned to us and said “what does this character want?” Most of my classmates said things like, “to be heard” or “to be desired”. I looked at her, and for a reason I didn’t understand said,

“To be useful”.

She looked at me, a little surprised, and said,

“Yes”.

So maybe at 28, I want to not need to be useful.

Or something quirky like that!

The truth is, when I wake up tomorrow there will still be a plate, oily and smeared with sauce, and a drained wine glass waiting to be cleaned. At work, I’ll still blush when someone wishes me a happy birthday and try to change the subject. I’ll still cry at dinner when I thank my friends for showing up, as if they wouldn’t.

But maybe at 28 I’ll start to let it pass through and not define me. Maybe… I hope I’m exactly the same at 28, but just… happy about it.

I feel alone, but not lonely. I feel soft, but strong. I feel sad, but free! And I feel like this glass of flat sparkling red wine is not going to drink itself.