I’m planning my birthday party. 23 is such an ugly number. It doesn’t look right, doesn’t divide evenly… I think I could be 22 just a bit longer. Not because I’m scared of being older the way that drunk 27-year-old woman in Cambridge was the night she stumbled upon me and Nate and told us how old and unvaluable she was. I think I could stand to be 22 for another year because I didn’t quite spend enough time appreciating how nice and even and symmetrical a thing it is to be 22. I remember saying that my favorite number was 21 when I was in fifth grade. I think I was lying.
There are three big things I want to do when I’m 23.
Move into a new apartment.
Dye my hair again.
Write more.
Oh and I want to finish the last three episodes of The Sopranos that I’ve been putting off for the past six months because I so desperately didn’t want the show to end.
But first, I need to plan a party to properly congratulate myself for turning 23.
I told Nate and Ethan I wanted to make goody bags for the party. Ethan asked if I was infantilizing myself on purpose. A Miffy themed party, wearing a birthday-girl hat, handing out goody bags. What’s next? A bouncehouse on the porch? The answer is yes. And also no. I never had a Miffy-themed party growing up. Not because I was denied one or anything.. I just don’t think I knew Miffy well enough. Too much disney princess and horse-girl influence from the girls at school. I never fucking liked horses.. why did I have that party.. But I’m all grown up now. I get to flaunt my intellectually superior choice of childhood character to ironically reobsess myself with in a way that is both reminiscent of what was fun and carefree about being young while still being age appropriate. Or something.
I made goody bags for my birthday party one year when I was maybe eleven. It wasn’t something my mom ever did for me. Not that I took notice really, until the year I had the smallest possible birthday party, like four people and my sister, and thought I should do something to make the party feel more special. I remember the weekend I spent crochetting tiny stuffed turtles to put in the goody bags. How tf did it take me a whole weekend to make four little turtles the size of clementines? Whatever, I just think goody bags will be fun.
I think being 23 will be more about routines. Because I’m deeply inspired to live a more predicatable life that will benefit my gut health or because I start my job two days after my birthday? Who knows. I’ve been thinking a lot about this boy who I was friends with freshman year of college who vaped religiously. There was a girl in the class we had together who went on this rant about how you’re proclaiming yourself to the world to be an idiot if you vape. She wasn’t making as much sense as she thought she was but nobody stopped her from pointing out the kids in our class who we knew vaped and calling them stupid. Completely unrelated, at some point later that year he decided to quit. He said it wasn’t that hard to decide you want to quit. Nobody actually wants to be addicted to vaping. But he began to realize that in all of the most mundane moments of his life, there was this third arm reaching out for his vape, chasing some kind of satisfaction. And in recognizing that the things he was most excited about in his routine were the moments he got to vape, he was baffled and dissapointed to realize that so many of his habits were so truly meaningless. Anyways.
At some point tomorrow I’ll finalize the list of who I’m inviting to my birthday so I know how much stuff I have the get for the goody bags and how big of a cake I need to ask my sister to bake. I’m also growing more and more impatient about the idea of waiting til I’m 23 to dye my hair again. Maybe I want new hair for the party. Maybe there’s no need to wait for that and I can do something fun for myself right now. I am only unemployed for three more weeks.
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