Minimally Eschew

I feel weird reading the things I wrote then I was 20. The prose is too showy and the words are too long, and my abuse of commas was somehow even worse than it is today. It embarrasses me to read those words, but it’s possible I’m embarrassed more by the person I was when I put those words down on those pages.

I turn 24 tomorrow. It’s not a big deal, except for in the ways that it is. I’ll spend all day in class and then come home and make dinner. I’ll do my homework and waste time scrolling through twitter. It’ll be just another Tuesday.

I’m the kind of person who likes to mark occasions. I like to lavish people with attention. Weird care packages and homemade cards, texts just to say ‘hi’ and emails with links that remind me of them. I feel my best when I’m showing people that I care.

I can’t bring myself to care about this birthday. It feels like a hurdle, to be honest, something I have to get past—get through—to get to the other side. To get to 24 and graduation and whatever comes after whatever it is I am doing right now.

Exactly one year ago, on the night before my 23^rd birthday, I wrote a blog post about the gifts I had found during year 22. It holds true, I think. When I read it over I smile and nod. I feel grateful for those moments and those people and those feelings that were so real as I was feeling them.

This year has had it’s share of gifts, but two of them matter more than all the rest.

The first gift is work.

Just nose to the grindstone, head in the books, work. This has been a year of accomplishing the things I need to accomplish. I graduate in 90 days, having squeezed three semesters worth of classes in to two semesters. I’ve taken stupidly easy pre-reqs and stupidly hard graduate seminars. I’ve had a lot of meetings with my advisor, sitting on opposite sides of her desk as we plan out my path. I’ve had a lot of homework—readings and essays and earth science labs that lasted for 4 hours on Wednesday mornings. It kind of stinks, truthfully. But it’s what I need to do and so I’m doing it.

The other gift is a little cheesier. Sorry.

This year, more than any, has shown me what a gift it is to have people. This year, at least the parts of it I’ve spent in Maryland, have been very isolated. Suburban life is weird and strange and I’ve spent a lot of time being very very thankful that when I get home at the end of the day I have people I can count on to be only a skype call away. Distance is hard, but knowing that there are people out there that care about me makes it a little easier to slog through whatever is being slung my way each day. I’m grateful for the gift of affection. Shown in phone calls I get from friends in far off places and in facebook messages from the other side of the world. I’m thankful for the people who send me links on twitter and for every time my brother emails me weird memes. I’m thankful for my parents who watch weird sitcoms and don’t complain when I sit in the room with them and ignore them in favor of my textbooks. I’m thankful for every little bit of love that I receive.

I hope I’m not embarrassed to read this four years from now. I hope the things in my life that I consider gifts are things that I will continue to value. I hope my work ethic doesn’t putter out and my love for others stays strong. I hope I have enough love and affection in my life that even to remark on it in such simple terms seems quaint. I know I’ll be disappointed in my comma abuse (I always am) but I hope the words I’m writing now will still feel true.

I turn 24 tomorrow.

I knew exactly what 23 was going to hold—school, camp, a home in Maryland and sustaining my relationships via internet connection. 24 is up in the air. 24 feels like a mystery. For once, I don’t know what comes next. But whatever it is, and wherever this year takes me, I’m ready. And even if I wasn’t, time passes anyway.

Lots of love.

The gifts 22 has given me:

Two states, four homes, and a half a dozen fold out couches and futons where I’ve been able to rest my head for a day, a week, or a couple of months. Twenty-two has been a year of movement.
A blue notebook small enough to fit in my purse full of to-do lists with items that I’ve already done and doodles that left my fingers stained in ink.
Friendships with people from every corner of the country and from all around the world. Pen pals in South America and Facebook messages from Texas. People I can count on in every time zone and climate.
A pair of black knee high boots that have seen sun and rain and snow and sleet and obscenely dirty New York City streets. The toes have faded and peeled, and I’ve colored over them more than once with Sharpie markers.
A summer in Warwick where I learned that sometimes starting new is the best idea of all. A summer full of love and learning and adventure and discovery. Planning intense programs about Israel. Plunging toilets. Making friends and making memories. Starting terrified, ending satisfied.
Taylor Swift’s ‘22’ sung to me by at least a dozen different people.
A third grade Hebrew school classroom full of the funniest, strangest, most excitable kids I’ve ever met. Passover plagues charades and Aleph-Bet flashcard trivia contests. Sounding out prayers with letters we just learned and singing songs at the top of our lungs. A Saturday making sandwiches for a soup kitchen and a Friday service with a gospel choir. Laughter and love and lots of learning.
Confidence in my work. My writing. My editing. My photography. My organizing. My teaching skills. A feeling—at least some of the time-- that I know what I’m doing.
Dance parties. With friends, sometimes. By myself more often than I should admit. In cars and theatres. On tennis courts and in living rooms. Lyrics shouted loud and dance moves done without shame.
A seventh grade Hebrew school classroom full of loud boys making silly jokes and shy girls who are so smart that sometimes it scares me. Lessons about fair trade and homelessness and poverty and what the Jewish commitment to social justice really means. Seriousness when it’s needed. The wonderful joy I get to feel as I watch these kids think about things they have never thought about before.
More than my fair share of panic attacks.
Monday nights when I can’t be home, so I wander up and down 86th street until I can’t feel my fingers anymore. Time in Barnes and Noble- walking up and down the aisles and reading 15 books a chapter at a time, until the plots mix in my head and I can’t match the characters to their stories. Sometimes, , I’ll treat myself to a movie and some treats smuggled in from the drugstore next door using a purse large enough to hide anything I want. I’ll people watch for a while, near the subway stop. The commuters with their briefcases and the students with their overflowing backpacks. The parents navigating strollers through the busy city streets.
A haircut. Just one.
A hard drive full of Word documents. Some that I’ve sent out in to the world. Lots that I never will. Stories and essays and letters to no one. Bits of dialogue without any plot. Bits of plot without a story to make them work. Memories I had to write somewhere -- anywhere -- so I wouldn’t lose them to the failures of memories of time.
The best ice cream I’ve ever had, at a small shop overlooking the hills of upstate New York. A car ride to get there where we had to pull off to the side of the road because we were laughing too hard for anyone to be able to safely drive. Tears in my eyes and an ache in my chest from pure happiness.
A concert by my favorite band with one of my best friends. A chance to shout the lyrics to the song that has defined my life for half a decade as the band played it live and I jumped up and down on a floor sticky with alcohol, in a room full of people who understood how much that moment meant to me
Every emotion possible. Sometimes all at once.
A family who, as they have done every year, and I know will do in in all my years to come, has shown me nothing but love and acceptance, even and especially when I felt like I didn’t deserve it.

365 days. Not a day too many, not a day too few.

The Year That Was and The Year That Will Be

The Gifts of Twenty-Two