Isn’t it difficult to gauge progress? Oftentimes the circumstances in life don’t offer like foundations for comparison, for there is always a variable that shifts one’s judgment. Perhaps Birthdays might be an exception, one brief way and day to measure how far you have come on our congested little orb, physically, emotionally, monetarily, sexually, and so forth. I always write myself a Birthday card for the next year to address such things. (Does that surprise you?)
Despite menacing neighbors and fresh fat on my ass, it’s surely all uphill from last year: Reluctantly emancipated from college, I celebrated my 22nd November 2nd with the only social outlet at my disposal - my parents. I looked across from them pathetically at our dinner table, pushing away my ornate plate of food but draining a few glasses of wine. I called a college friend in the bathroom stall and cried nostalgically, fell down some stairs, egged my parents to take me to a bar, draped myself across a local musician, roused my parents from their nap in the bar stools, and then purged the fluid that induced all of this when we arrived home at 12:15am on November 3rd. (But of course I couldn’t purge the emotions for some time to come.) Icing on my B-day cake was later discovering various text messages I had sent to various men such that, “fsdfsdDONTfsBOTHERsdfsdEMOTIONALsfdsdfBAGGAGE.”
Oh - I never want to be one of those women (isn’t it mostly women?) who are reluctant to grow older. (How surprising is the quantity of Argentine women who raze the traces of their aggregate years. Even Christina Kirchner, the newly elected president, looks more like a model in a botox ad.) Tomorrow I shall be 23, and though I’m estranged from most of the people who cast hues on my heart, I plan to start this year off with something of a smile.
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