desideri e domande

Here I am.  The eve of my 30th birthday and I feel like a failure.

I'm having a 3/4 of a mid-life crisis, which is funny becos nowadays people go through mid mid-life crisis. I guess mine just didn't hit me till now.  

I went to bed last night overthinking, overanalyzing my birthday.  At Thanksgiving, I had made it clear that for my 30th birthday I wanted a dinner with my closest friends and family.  My birthday would also have to...HAVE TO...include mariachis in a charismatically lit backyard serenading the guests and myself.   I even wanted my husband's family there.  Come Christmastime, I had reiterated my desire for a dinner and mariachis.  At Maund's cousin's wedding there were mariachis who went from table to table taking requests and AGAIN I expressed my birthday plan.  

So imagine my surprise when my husband approached me Monday, August 1, 2011, asking what I wanted to do for my birthday.  Three days before my birthday!  I hate to admit it, but I'm pretty sure that a tiny piece of my heart died at that moment.  That's an intense thing to say, right? I know, but I've noticed that this year has caused that to happen in me.  I do my best not to let things get to me, but I feel that I try so hard to please other people that I expect the same from them.  I have such high expectations and when they don't follow through I take it personally.  It hurts.  This experience felt like cramming for a test.  You've had all this time to thoroughly prepare for the SATs, but instead you procrastinate until the week of the exam and say, "Well, we could hav a BBQ and invite some people." What does that do? A BBQ is not a 1400 test score.  A BBQ is the credit you get for bubbling in your name on the score sheet. I plan all of my birthdays.  I plan events for other friends.  I help in the orchestration of other events.  I cook Thanksgiving meals.  I cook Christmas meals.  I plan Easter holidays. I bake birthday cakes and attempt to decorate them with other than frosting to coat them.  I wanted someone to care for me.  I wanted someone to say, "I know you've had possibly the worst year of your life, so far.  From Aug 2010 to now, not only have you experienced change, but you've had to endure many losses.  Neither loss is greater than the other, but each loss equally as painful. Let's celebrate you and start a new year with hope and joy."  I want to have a happy event.  I didn't want a consolation prize.  I wanted a well thought out plan.

I look back and think about what I've written and it sounds selfish.  I'm a Leo.  It's in my nature to want to be the center of attention, but that's not really me.  I have a tendency to want to take care of other people.  I have a tendency to protect others.  So maybe this is the selfish, self-centered side coming out in this entry.

This was the kind of toy I got for my birthday.

I started thinking about my childhood and realized that I never had a birthday party.  You're probably wondering, "how is that possible?" or "c'mon, everyone has parties!" Nope.  I have a picture of my 3rd or 4th birthday.  My mom had bought me a new shirt and had baked a cake.  In the picture, there is a Cabbage Patch Kids Talking Phone next to me and my cake as I'm about to blow out the candles.  I remember that day becos I got chocolate frosting all over my shirt and got upset.

I'm guessing that my other birthdays were like that, but I can't remember any of them.  There was never a planned party at McDonald's, Pizza Hut, or Chuck E. Cheese.  There were never house parties with nifty party favors or cartoon themed plates, cups, napkin.  It wasn't until my 18th birthday that a couple of people took notice of the lack of celebration. Barbara, my hometown bestfriend, knew that my family wasn't as well off as hers, but she never ceased to surprise me.  She never missed a birthday or grand event.  For my 18th birthday, she showed up at my door and presented me with a little gift.  She then kidnapped me and said that becos I was now 'legal' it was my mission to buy a pack of cigarettes and porn.  Those were the rights bestowed upon me as an American and that's what we did.  Later that day, I called over to the Garcia's house to see who wanted to hang out.  Wilbur and Bern were brothers and the sons of my Spanish teacher.  We had gotten close and hung out just about every single day that summer.  We played guitars, they taught me chords, they schooled me on classic rock and singer/songwriters from the 60s and 70s, how to exercise, play sports, run, tried to teach me how to cook.  They were only 4 and 6 years older than I was, but we connected on so many levels and I learned a lot from those two.  Bern picked up and mentioned he had just gotten out of work.  Since we were "new" friends, the brothers didn't know when my birthday was, nor did I know theirs. We chatted for awhile and he asked me what I did that day.  I mentioned that Barbara had taken me to go buy cigarettes and porn and he laughed.  He got quiet for a moment and then asked if it was my birthday.  I acknowledge that today was indeed my 18th and he asked what I was doing to celebrate.  Bern wasn't satisfied with my response and said, "I'd like to take you out. Get dressed! Get ready! We're going to the Riverwalk!"  That was the thing to do, go celebrate in San Anto' which is an hour away.  I had so much fun that night.  I got wined and dined and treated important.  Well, not exactly, maybe soda'd and dined would be a better term.  It was a great night and a nice ending to what would have otherwise been a disastrous birthday.

Since then, I try to plan events for my birthdays. Dinner with friends, drinks, maybe go to a club.  Maybe that's why I was hoping that this one would be different.  That someone would want to take care of me.

I thought about all of this as I was trying to go to sleep.  I started crying silently in the dark and it was a little difficult to stop, but through all of that, I never once woke up my husband.  This got me thinking about other things. The night before I had finished reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and I wondered if I had given up on my own Personal Legend?  When I was younger I had many dreams that I thought I would fulfill.  I never had a time frame, but these were things that I wanted to do.  Now that I'm 3/4 of the way to the halfway mark of my lifespan, it scares me.  What do I have to show for this?  I graduated high school.  I graduated from university.  I lived in Italy. I worked for a non-profit. I'm married.  I have a house and mortgage.  We own 2 cars and will be done paying off a 3rd soon.  We have a cat and 2 dogs.  That seems like a lot, but I want more.  And I felt like the shittiest person in the world becos when I think about my dreams and fantasies, I'm always alone.  I never see my husband in these visions.  I had toyed with the idea of skydiving for our wedding anniversary and found out before booking that Maund is scared of heights.  How did I not know that?  In all the time that I've known him, I just found this out last year.  One dream I have is hiking through the Dolomites and when I close my eyes to envision it, he's not there.  When I was younger, I wanted to be an epidemiologist, but that would require more schooling.  In honing my skills, I realized that I wanted to become a Foreign Services Officer, but to really be considered for a position I would need my masters degree.  And really, that's probably the minimum requirement.  So I definitely need to go back to school and practice my languages more.  Maybe even learn 2 or 3 more.  But even in this dream, I'm by myself. 

Is he holding me back? Or better yet, do I want an excuse so that I don't have to take credit for not fulfilling my Personal Legend?  I would have no one to blame but myself.  Do I still have time to fulfill my Personal Legend or is it too late? I assume I need to do this on my own.  It's a personal journey, but how do I realize my dream when I'm attached to someone else?  And not just someone else, but a complete life which includes hundreds of possessions, a mortgage, and furry friends.  

I would love to find a genie in a lamp.  I could make a couple of changes.

Or better yet, turn back time to one significant moment and change it.  I thought about this last night and I know what that moment would be.  I would go back to the 6th grade and forget about my crush on Colin.  I think that would have changed things dramatically.  It would have saved me a lot of grief growing up in a small town.

I feel awful for having these thoughts.  I feel disgusted for asking these questions.  Honestly, this is the only forum where I can get these thoughts out.  But my biggest fear is that now that I've asked these questions, do I need to answer them or do I continue with life as I know it, ignoring the desires of my heart?  Am I too afraid of answering these questions?