I am going into my 40th year with a heart that is cracked and bruised but thankfully—still beating.
No other year, other than the year my mom died, have I endured so much change and heartbreak and uncertainty. And here I am, on the cusp of surviving the second hardest year of my life.
This is not to say it has all been hard. It has also been a year that has had some of my happiest moments.
I started thinking about how I wanted to celebrate my 40th birthday shortly after I turned 36. It seemed like an impossible wish at the time but one that seemed more plausible as the years rolled by, until one day, it was the actual plan. This was not a trip to Iceland to see the Northern Lights (another dream!) or publishing a novel (my most favorite dream!), it was a wish so benign, so ordinary, it is almost embarrassing to have thought about it for so long.
In case you are new here and are unfamiliar with how my life goes, I no longer have this birthday plan.
I feel bad for 36-year-old me; so cautiously hopeful as she put her wish out into the universe. I hope she forgives 39-year-old me for a having a part in this unrealized dream. I hope she knows we still have more wishes; they have not all been granted yet and since we are the genie and the holder of the lamp—we get to have more than three.
The night before Halloween a women dressed as Harley Quinn sat at a table in a bar downtown near where I was reading. She said, “are you alone too?”
BY CHOICE, I wanted to scream (even though that is not entirely true).
Obviously, that is why my book is here. We are alone by choice. Me and My Book, so not really alone. But she immediately followed that up with “can we hang out?” and I, of course, said sure. She told me she was 52 and divorced. She met a man on a dating app recently. She showed me his picture. She just pulled this costume out of her closest. She didn’t think she could wear this costume at her age (she looked fantastic), but she did it and as she talked, I could see she felt like she was telling me too much. All I could think was damn, I hope I’m that cool and free 12 years from now. I hope I’m asking strangers to hang out with me. I wish I would have told her that.
In the beginning of November, my local bookstore posted that they were closing. When I first visited Morganton almost two years ago, the owner of this bookstore signed me up for rewards because she “knew I would be back.” Tonight, when I saw her post about closing, I asked if she would like emotional support cookies. She confirmed. Pants less and kitchen dancing, I made the recipe I know by heart, that will be baked tomorrow and delivered warm from my oven to one of the first people that made this town feel like home.
An irresistible urge to crawl in a hole and pretend you know no one. So much crying.
I started therapy again. I realized I am maybe a few years behind schedule on doing this but better late than never right? After my second session I danced in the kitchen and baked so many things and shook my ass at no one other than the Santa figurine that currently sits in between my kitchen and living room. I did not cry. Cured! (Spoiler alert: I am not).
The baked goods were for a Thanksgiving gathering I would attend the next day, my first major holiday away from “home”. These friends insisted I come to Thanksgiving at their house before I even said what my plans were (I had no plans).
No one I know makes me feel this way, but I so often feel like a 3rd/10th/15th wheel. I recently remarked to someone that knows and loves me well that I had received an invitation to a gathering, and it was nice to be thought of, and she replied, “Alecia, you’re fun to be around, you aren’t a burden.”
Oh.
*Makes note to discuss in therapy*
You will begin naming your plants. You will have a favorite. (My favorite is Bea, don’t tell Betty)
That good day I thought I had two paragraphs ago? I will end up cocooning myself in a blanket and curling myself into a ball. At 12:18 am I will sob so hard I feel like I can’t breathe. I will sleep on the couch for the third night in a row and despite what I have learned before and what I am learning now, I will think, how is it possible I will ever be ok?
But I also know I will try again tomorrow.
It’s difficult to make friends as an adult, real friends. Even for me, someone who considers herself naturally a “people person”. I love people, but my circle is small—70% of my phone notifications are from one person, my best friend since I was 18 years old. So, it feels like an unexpected gift that I could walk into this house on Thanksgiving—simultaneously a house whose occupants I didn’t even know a year and a half ago and a house that I have walked into on numerous occasions unannounced—and feel so at ease. (Technically, I was announced on this occasion because their kid, whom I adore, ran in and yelled, “Alecia is here!!”)
Upon entering I was greeted by people I didn’t know but no one looked at me like who is that. A woman came in from outside and I knew immediately who she was. As I sat my desserts on the table, she said, “Are you Alecia?” and when I said that I was she gave me a hug and said, “I’ve heard so much about you!” I knew she was my friend’s sister because I had heard so much about her too.
This is one of the greatest acts of love. To think about and care about someone so much that a person who has never met you knows who you are because of the way you have been spoken about.
The entire day filled me with a joy I haven’t felt in a very long time. I was immediately offered champagne, I was put to work in the kitchen, I documented the deep frying of the turkey, I shoved my face with fresh oysters as my friend’s mom said, “We have to eat these, it’s just me and you.” A family member who is a chef called my cookies perfect. PERFECT.
I don’t know how I top that honestly.
I am mostly a homebody but there hasn’t been a day I’ve woken up in this house, with these people, that has felt uncomfortable.
“I’m so afraid but I’m open wide, I’ll be the one to catch myself this time” - Adele, 30
“Same.” - Alecia, 40.
I bought a dress recently for a visit to the Biltmore Estate. I like myself physically approximately once every 2 - 4 -10 years. I don’t think this is novel or special, but it is especially disorienting when, for example, at no other point in my life have I been called beautiful more than I have in the last few years and still I think, well that seems suspicious!!
Even 20lbs ago, I would not have picked this dress to try on. It draped on the hanger condescendingly, all foldy fabric and slinkiness. But I was on dress six at this point and I thought well what’s one more to hate.
I feel like it is important to point out this dress was not made by a famous designer who can make anyone feel great about themselves. I am frugal through and through. This dress cost $25. $24.99 technically because TJX companies For Life!!
I pulled this gorgeous green velvet dress over my thighs and thought well I guess it ends here and then it didn’t. Never going to get this bitch zipped I thought and then I did. You know what this dress felt like when I put it on in the dressing room? Like old me, a woman who was fun and laughed a lot and loved to dress up. And because I saw a glimmer of her, I bought it. I wasn’t exactly sold on it yet, but I knew I could return it if I got home and hated it.
So, the next day, I tried it on again. I sent a picture to Erin and Vanessa, best friend and friend who would see me in the dress, respectively. They said I looked great in it. And I agreed! It’s a great dress. Maybe it’s some Christmas miracle. Maybe I’m finally realizing, I have a lot more to offer than what I perceive. I think mostly it’s that I saw myself again, without anyone influencing my view. There’s a lot I want to pick a part. ( my boobs are uneven! I need to lose like a million pounds! My leg is pale!) but I know what my face looks like in this picture, and it’s one of relief mixed with a little bit of damn.
By the end of December, I will have celebrated my birthday on four separate occasions in four different states— In North Carolina with my new friends, who in only a year and a half have made me feel like family, a weekend trip in Virginia with my best friend, a celebratory bar hang with my Fake Husband at my favorite neighborhood dive bar in Maryland and a dinner/game night with my dad and stepmom in Pennsylvania. How lucky am I.
Of the 40 things on my 40 Before 40 List, I have only fully completed 13. A lot are in progress. When I made the list, I thought I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get at least most of them done. But six days out for the big 4-0, I don’t feel that way. Arguably, the hardest and most life changing item on the list— moving to North Carolina— I got to check off and I am really proud of that. I also got to eat delicious food and buy coffee for 40 strangers and raise $1,000 for a cause I really care about and bake fun things and stay in a Yurt. I hope to accomplish more in my 40th year and on the dawn of 41, I will add ten more things and it will become my 50 Before 50 list.
What a beautiful life.
I recently said to my therapist I am so alone. “Is that true?” She asked, looking at me quizzically as we stared at each other for a few seconds. I like my therapist, as much as one can like a person who digs for the hard stuff and then when you start crying just casually points you to the box of tissues, but my favorite thing about her is that I’ll say some dumbass platitude and then she’ll give me a Is that so? Want to try again? look that makes realize I am letting my depression speak instead of the reality of my life.
I get to celebrate my birthday in four different states! I don’t even know what all that entails yet, but I do know I am and will be extra loved in a year I desperately need it and for that I am grateful. (Still going to wish for salt and pepper hair when I blow out my candles though)
To Take Back A Life A poem by Kate Baer First, you must learn desire. Hold its fruit in your hands. Unmarry it from the hunger to be held, to be wanted, to be called from the streets like the family dog. You are not a good girl. You are not somebody’s otherness. This is not a dress rehearsal before a better kind of life. Pick up your heavy burdens and leave them at the gate. I will hold the door for you.