birthday

31

I turn 31 next week. It’s fine. It wasn’t fine last year. 30 was a milestone I felt completely unprepared to reach, one which pitted me against my self-doubt and unsteady outlook on the future. I was in the midst of a divorce, which didn’t help matters much. I was already struggling with the idea that I’d accomplished very little, while others my age were set in careers or thriving in their hobbies or starting families. Meanwhile, my life was being rearranged and I didn’t feel like I had tangible things to offer the world in exchange for a safety line. I, in my mind, had very little to show for the 30 years I’d been walking around, taking up air and space on sidewalks.

Turning 30 was hard.

31 isn’t shaping up to be troublesome. Rather, it feels insignificant but also exciting. And what’s odd, it feels exciting in the face of its obscurity. I read an article today giving more details about how exactly the six-mile-wide asteroid crashing into the earth killed the dinosaurs. The intricacies of the ripple-effect were fascinating, but they gave me pause. “Wow,” I remembered, “I am quite small.” I am one among seven billion, all of whom would have likely never evolved had a big rock not hit a bigger rock floating in a vacuum filled with trillions upon trillions of rocks and gases and wondrous pockets of absolute emptiness. I am less than a grain of sand upon the biggest beach I can imagine.

And I’m happy.

I’m surrounded by goodness in the midst of my life which hasn’t, for the majority of it, felt all that meaningful. And maybe it’s not. But I’m meaningful to a small group of lovely people—a partner and friends and family and the best dog, yes, better than your dog, I know I know, you don’t believe me but this really isn’t a competition so don’t take it personally—and that makes a life. We are wonderfully made in our relationships.

So while I’m not making the difference I imagined I would be in the world, and I’m not where I thought I’d be had you asked me a decade ago, I’m exactly where, and who, I should be: a flawed person, important to some, dedicated to making the most out of the short time I’ve been given. With my few gifts and talents, I can make my relatively insignificant mark on the world around me, drawing a small doodle that may not last beyond my lifetime. But it will be significant to those I so dearly wish would see it that way. They love me, and I love them. It took 31 years, but I finally learned something worth knowing.