Recently, I made a new friend. In typical “first hangout” style, we asked all the usual getting-to-know-you questions. When we both discovered we had upcoming birthdays, I remember specifically telling her how, over the past few years, I fear my next age about halfway through my current age. Because Joel (my husband) and I are born the same year, but his birthday is 5 months earlier than mine, my aging anxiety typically ensues in June, but by the time November rolls around, I’m well adjusted - already telling people I’m the age I’m yet to be turning for at least a few months. Suddenly the age I actually am feels “too young”.
I share this in spirit of my upcoming birthday. I’ll be turning 27 in 3 weeks. For some reason, every number in your 20’s feels significant - a milestone of sorts. I have a long running joke with a friend about each age being a new title; “twenties”, then “early twenties”, then “early-mid twenties”, then “mid-twenties”, then “late-mid twenties”, then “late twenties”… there’s a few more qualifiers between those, but you get the idea.
I’m not sure exactly where I’ll land in a few weeks, but I think it’s something like “mid-to-late twenties”.
To celebrate, I’m inviting a few friends over for what I’m calling a “27 club farewell (birthday) party”. I’ll be making dinner, and each person has been assigned something to contribute to the meal. There will be no phones, and an invitation to bring a record and prepare a sort of end-of-life speech - perhaps a eulogy, a list of death wishes, or whatever else they want to come up with. It’s a cheeky way to celebrate my “entry” into the 27 club, especially since I’ll be hiking down & back up the Grand Canyon with my mum on the day after my birthday.
Something a little seredipitous, and strange, is also happening on my birthday. This summer, I landed my first TV acting gig, and it will be premiering on my birthday. Now if I’m honest, the project itself, for me, is less-than-exciting. Some information about the production was withheld before I got on set, and the whole thing left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. However, I can’t help but think there is something significant about the alignment of dates. The past year of my life was the first full year I went full-time with my solo art-making endeavours, and its the first year I’ll cross the threshold of which I am required to get an HST number (something I funnily have been both dreading and working towards). This gig is a fraction of what supported me through my first year of financial independance, so I’m taking it as a sign of sorts that it’ll keep working out for me.
I wonder if turning 27 is a sort of death, in and of itself. Far away are the days that I get a 25-and-under youth discount… I’ll be looking down the barrel of 30! At 27, I’ll have been married for two years. I’m a car owner, and a cat owner, and I am responsible to people in my community. Why did all those artistic geniuses die at 27? Is my young adulthood passing away?
When I really think about it, I’m actually not scared of age, or death. Sure, I have the odd anxiety bubble up, thanks to the societal narrative that old = bad. But I have such a deep admiration for aging. Yes, I am referring to the wisdom and serenity that can come from so much life experience, but I am also referring to the beauty that arrives from the slow decay, graceful fragility, and beautiful softness that happens when we age. My grandparents all died when I was quite young, so I don’t have many regular elderly figures in my life, but there’s a church I visit that is mostly composed of people in their late retirement. Sometimes when I see them, I can’t help but cry but for their beauty alone.
Maybe for my birthday I need one of those bumper stickers that says “I <3 Aging & Dying.”
