I am 29 today
I was born today. My birth was recorded officially on Feb 11, so that's my 'official' birthday. Today is the 'actual.'
This makes me laugh. It's coincidental, but so much of my life happens in the distance between the 'official' and the 'actual.'
Normally I don't have much of a reaction to birthdays other than to note them and maybe be a bit self-congratulatory. This morning though, I feel like I'm running out of time! Or about to. Or that I'm gonna be late for something. Or already am. A weird urgent feeling about some vague thing gnawing at the back of my mind that won't go away.
My mom once told me that age doesn't actually make that much of a difference to who you are. You stay who you essentially are and the number keeps going up. I was very disappointed to hear that, because at the time (age 12) I was hoping that age 16 I would suddenly explode into fabulosity and sprout wings. Or shed what was starting to be an uncomfortable and unlikable body like a snake and emerge as something wholly better. That never really happened, sad to say, though I guess I did stop persecuting myself for being who I am.
Thinking back to my 12 year old self, who thought of age 30 as The Age Of Completion When I Will Know Everything, I wonder how I would look to myself, just 12 months away from The Age.
I have this very uncomfortable suspicion that I might be a bit disappointing to 12 Year Old Purly. Because she's going to ask 'What do you DO?' and I'm going to have to blink a bit and not be able to muster the enthusiasm and pride that I was hoping I would have about my career. I also think that she might be very downcast at how infrequently I have sex, and the fact that I have not had a Great Love. Because secretly she wanted those things, even though she said she didn't. I really hoped I would grow up to be someone who grabs a strong hold of herself and jumps into life, but for the past few years I'm either being thrashed by it, taken by surprise, or living in a state of suspended animation. I hoped for a Big Life. I didn't mean Big like Famous or Rich. I just hoped it would be on a Big scale. And I don't feel like I'm living one. I'm so frequently bored.
Yeah. I need to shake myself loose, somehow. If it can't be Big, my life has to at least feel Satisfying, and it's definitely not even that. Hm.