I’m not one to celebrate my birthday — haven’t been for, oh, around 10 years. Why, do you ask? Because the number ascribed to me by time - one’s age - makes me uncomfortable. Growing another year older isn’t something to be celebrated in this case. Now, if my life timeline had involved less roadblocks and incapacitation so I could have been more involved, grown more, had more experiences, been able to heal, make progress — I’m sure I would see things differently. But, alas...
Due to my uncomfortability surrounding that “special time of year”, I ended up developing a new superpower. Yes, indeed! I gained the ability to literally not know what age I was. I took care to avoid encounters with that particular adjacent reality with its fixed timeline….which I no longer ascribed to…. 😊 Yes, on the rare occasion, that age audaciously claiming to belong to me did pop into my line of sight or range of hearing, such as when filling out forms or when a relative perhaps off-handedly made mention of it. But I managed to block it out and continue on with my life without that information sticking to me.
There was a period of maybe 4 or 5 years in my twenties I accomplished this feat. All I knew was that I was in the range of 24 to 29 — hell if I knew. I did not care what age I was, and I did want to know. I ~tried~ not to celebrate my birthday. No parties, no going out with friends, no one being notified by Facebook that it was my birthday. That’s just the way I like it. Although, immediate family sometimes insisted on buying a gift or making a dessert or going out to eat. It was a necessary duty to go through with… But I would remind them to not make mention of my age.
I did come into conscious awareness of the fixed-timeline age associated with myself in the very latter end of the twenties bracket. This is due to my obtaining new employment and henceforth being bombarded with the question of, “How old are you?” by my fellow co-workers. (Why in the world is that so important for people to know?) Well, I had to have an answer to give them. Once I hit thirty, though, the intentional dissociation from age-related timeline hit once again. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what my exact age was, up till about a week ago.
Today, March 14, 2021, happens to be my birthday once more. And because of a couple outside reminders, namely browsing for cheaper car insurance and revisiting a website I’ve used in the past to meet new friends (which requires you to input your date of birth when you create a profile, subsequently displaying your age right next to your name and profile image….😬), I currently know my age.
It stuck with me this time because it was a pleasant surprise! The number that usually makes an appearance to mock me displayed a figure this time that was at least one digit less than what I thought it would be. It made me a little happy! Kind of like getting a second chance on 1 or 2 years of my life. Who gets to say that? So, thanks superpower! I feel unexpectedly encouraged. I will try to keep a tighter rein on the jaded, tamed, ‘geriatrified’ facets of my self 🙃
-000
