The 10-20-30 virus

Doug‘s tagged me with a meme I’m actually interested in playing along with. Because my 50th birthday is rapidly approaching, and it’s extremely easy for me to remember what I was doing at the ages of 19, 29, and 39.

30 years ago, I was in Steilacoom, Washington, living with my cousin Ellen and her first husband, their four dogs, and my cat. I was trying to decide two things: 1) Did I want to live in Seattle and go to U. of Wash.? and 2) Did I want to go back to school, or did I want to join the working world? My decisions: No and back to school the next year for me.

It was an interesting time in my life. I sucked at most of the jobs I tried. I couldn’t sell radio ads—got fired in two weeks. I spent a little time as a dog-bather in a grooming shop. But I had no real skills and was in an area that wasn’t yet Microsoft country, so there weren’t many jobs to be had. I also couldn’t stand the rain in the Pacific Northwest. I left. I drove from Seattle to San Diego (with my cat) in a 1972 Chevy Vega (yes, really) that broke down several times on the way. I spent the time between Christmas and New Year 1977 in the Knotty Pine Trailer Park in Rogue River, Oregon (pop. 922 at the time). I remember trying very hard on New Year’s Eve to look 21 so I could buy a bottle of champagne. I rehearsed my whole pity-me speech in my head at the grocery store, which ended with something like, “So won’t you please just let me get a little New Year’s cheer?” The clerk didn’t look twice at my bottle of (sigh) Andre, just rang it up with the rest of my groceries. I watched more football that New Year’s Day than I’d ever done in my life. Alone, bored, waiting for my father to wire me the money to put a new engine in my car. He did, eventually.

The next breakdown was in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco, where a hippie chick wearing a long, flowing, white peasant dress invited me to come wait for AAA at a party she and her friends were going to. I declined. I was rather familiar with what that party would be like, and I was alone in a strange place, and not feeling inclined to trust a bunch of drugged-out strangers. When I finally got to Los Angeles, I sold the Vega and flew back to the east coast, but not until after the two blizzards of that winter hit the northeast, leaving six-plus feet of snow on the streets and making most roads small, two-lane streets. Then I flew to Florida to stay with my mother until the snow melted, and discovered why you don’t let cats out without flea collars. (Can you say, flea infestation? I knew you could.) I couldn’t wait to get back to school and out of the working world. When I did go back to school the next fall, my writing had made a dramatic improvement. Amazing what a little incentive will do to your will to hide from the working world for two more years.

20 years ago, I was living in Bloomfield, NJ, in a small attic apartment. I was depressed because I was about to turn 30 and I hadn’t achieved any of the things I thought I would achieve by that age. I wasn’t a world-famous novelist. I didn’t have a great job. Wasn’t married, no kids, life seemed rather dead-end at the time. I found myself listening to Jefferson Airplane’s “Lather” and writing in my journal (which I will not excerpt here, if you don’t mind). My friends threw me a surprise birthday party. It is the only surprise party that ever worked. I’ve always managed to ruin my own surprise parties, because I have a mind that picks up on subtle clues long before most others, so it’s nearly impossible to surprise me. Not impossible. Just very, very difficult. In fact, I was so scared by the dozens of people jumping out and yelling “SURPRISE” that I was pretty much in shock the rest of the party. It took me about half an hour to recover enough to even realize who was there. The party brought me out of my doldrums for that time, anyway.

10 years ago, I was in San Diego, California, celebrating my 40th birthday with my family. The east coast members of the family flew out to be with our cousins on the west coast. We did it there for two reasons: My west coast family is more fun, and my Aunt Edith, who was my favorite aunt, had pancreatic cancer, and it would be the last time we were all together. Unfortunately, she didn’t make it to the party. She died in October. Her death had the opposite effect you’d think, though—it inspired more members of east coast family to fly out for the party, because they began to realize that you can’t count on being at the next one, or seeing the people you want to see at the next one. So we had a good time, though there was a shadow over everything. Aunt Edith was like my second mom, and I miss her still.

Which brings us to today: November 15th is my 50th birthday. I hate getting older. I’ve chosen to celebrate my birthdays in ways that make me feel young. That’s partly why I chose this year to celebrate my adult bat mitzvah. Four years ago, I went indoor rock climbing. I’m afraid of heights. It’s the challenge that keeps you young—the challenge of learning or doing something you’ve never done before. This year, I learned to read haftarah. Next year, I’ll probably learn to read Torah for my birthday. But every year, I try to find something different to keep me from feeling old and worn out.

I think that ending my bat mitzvah on Saturday afternoon, surrounded by nearly thirty children from ages six to sixteen singing Adon Olam, was a very, very, very good way to keep from feeling old. I think including my bat mitzvah speech with this post will give you a better idea of how I felt.

The meme includes tagging five other bloggers. Feel free to tag yourselves, as I don’t usually do that sort of thing. But this was a fun exercise.