Twenty-Eight.

[bethofalltrades]

My birthday is always a complicated time for me. I do not like these rather arbitrary checkpoints, times when we are conditioned to look back and judge our own progress. As if my life on May 30th, 2010 can be related to my life on May 30, 2009 in neat list form:

Beth is
(check all that apply)Happier

Comments

Thank you

[anonymous]

Although I want to say, "No, Beth, you're achieving huge, fantastic, amazing things!" (and I'm sure you are), I have to say, "I am so glad someone else feels like this!".

My birthday is a few weeks after yours (I will also be 28) and I feel almost exactly the same way. I don't have a cool job or decent love life though, so if anything I envy you.

I'm now aiming for 43 as being the age at which I'll figure out what I want to be when I grow up. 43-year-old me will probably scoff at this notion of 27-year-old me, as much as 27-year-old me thinks 21-year-old me was delusional.

Jen Ava (http://www.amativus.net)

[luffing]

I hear you. I just turned 28 a few months ago, and sort of thought I'd have my shit together by now. Not only is it not together, I don't know where a lot of it lives.

Despite being initially skeptical and turned off by something aimed at "girls our age", I've started doing the Joy Equation thing from stratejoy.com- it's a 30-day thing that's supposed to help you find your Right Life. Seems cool so far. (I have absolutely NO affiliation with them and aren't trying to sell it to you- just suggesting something that's helping me). The writing prompts are dredging up ALL sorts of interesting shit in my brain.

Best of luck to you.

[eyeoftheradio]

Hey Beth -

Thanks for posting this. I'm 24 days away from my 28th. I was thinking a lot about the exact things that you posted in this and how birthdays and new years are the two times that arbitrarily force me to take inventory: one for where I want my life to be and one for where my I've been. Birthdays are always the ones that make me depressed and frantic to try and do something while there's still time. At least knowing now that I didn't know shit at 23 makes me hopeful five years from now I can say the same thing.

And having nothing figured out for a while really has a way of clearing your head and making you focus.

Good luck with everything and I hope your 28 continues on its upward trend!

Kelly

[spacedlaw]

Don't sweat about numbers, they only grow. Unless you die. Some people never get to be 28. Some people can't even remember what it was like to be as ridiculously young as say... 28 (honest. I don't remember).
Enjoy each day as much as you can, the shit only being there to emphasize the good bits, the same way light would not exist without darkness to define it.

[weezerchild703]

When I turned 21 I was comparing my life - when I didn't know what my future held, what I wanted to do - to Alanis Morissette at 21 writing and releasing Jagged Little Pill. How she created art that changed the (music) world as we previously knew it, and hear I was... not knowing what my contribution to society would be. Then a friend pointed out to me that Alanis was never asked to join Phi Beta Kappa (a prestigious liberal arts honor society) and that that should be an accomplishment in and of itself. And it made me feel better because I know that it's silly to compare yourself to someone else, especially to talented artists because we all have something to contribute, even if it's only going to matter to one, or two other people and not 30 million

[lentower]

what hayley said