I am 40 years old today.Do I look back or look forward?
Maybe push my eyes to the side and do both? My nose torn between scents on both sides.
My 30’s were an ass kicker. And yet, and yet, and yet. I emerged victorious. A whole decade of being torn and stitched and put back together. Over and over again.
Many things not even by my own doing
The drinking, yes, the drinking and the over eating that was by my own hands and gullet and also not by me, it felt like ghosts were holding my hands and dropping drink and sugar down my throat. Complex and simple.
This is AN answer, it covers some bases.
Not all, but a great deal.
With my grit and shining personality I could mostly skate by with consistent numbing.
Somewhere along the way though I looked back at the line and realized it was just me wriggling and wiggling on the vine.
I could have opened up myself to bloom but I chose not to.
Why?
Oh many reasons that have to do with ancestors, etched and drawn on brains and in DNA, and also the land and culture I was born into. I was sold some story of small.
It has been A LOT to be big in this mold.
It has felt much safer for me to keep my own hands in the holes of the dam than even imagining someone else touching it, plugging it, patching it.
I wanted control over my smallness.
So I kept myself in the same crab shell, even when it hurt, especially when it hurt.
Sometimes the hurt felt good. Familiar, historic, truthful.
Feeling good, now that is some sneaky shit. I still look at it with a side eye. Who the fuck are you? I ask over and over and over.
It laughs at me. It doesn’t defend.
The small defended and wailed and pounded and said drink.drink.drink. Run.run.run. Eat.eat.eat.
Push.pull.push.pull.push.pull.push.pull.push.pull.push.pull
Here I am, this I know is true.
The calendar says November 29th, 2022, 40 years ago I emerged in some hospital in Southern California. My mother was in labor for over 24 hours. She was scared of the epidural needle so she suffered with consciousness. My father was high on the rooftop with his cousin, and there was a storm. An epic storm. After my birth my mother handed me to the nurses and she quickly fell asleep.
She did not cuddle or soothe or feed, she had overexerted herself from fear of a needle and she needed rest.
I was brand new.
My father was somewhere, someplace, smoking cigars, drinking, smoking more weed.
She slept, I started to get used to bones and flesh and air in my lungs, and the storm raged on.
Welcome to the 40’s babe, I hear they are good, I hear they are what you make them ….you know, that shit (true) statement, you get what you put into it.
Am I as tired?
No.
What a lovely thing, right?
Am I scared?
Fuck yes I am.
I’m 40 and I’m scared because it may just be alright after all.