What a difference a year makes

Happy Birthday to me!

And a happy birthday it was. Which is a nice change from last year. Last year for my 29-again birthday, I barely got out of bed. It was a miserable rainy day in Jersey City, and no part of me was interested in celebrating myself. I hid away until it was all over. I think I might have ordered a pizza and eaten a Hostess cupcake, no candle. It was rather pathetic.

This year, I was happy to have people sending good wishes. I was happy to share the news that, yes, today is MY special day and all the world should feel free to lavish me with love. And I was feeling the love. It was an extension of a birthday weekend, of sorts. Alex and I flew back to Jersey last week to deal with boxes that were being stored in my parents' house, boxes and boxes of books and photo albums and artwork and CD's and DVD's, things we knew we wanted but did not want to ship to Seattle until we had an address with a bit more longevity than the 6-month sublet we moved into in September. A 2-year lease on our current place meant it was time to bring our stuff home to us, and so we spent a couple of days digging around in crawl spaces and attics, finding things we'd been missing and other things we'd forgotten. We unpacked and repacked and prepared ourselves for a problematic visit to the US Post Office, but it all turned out to be much simpler than we'd anticipated. We only had one box turned away, because it weighed 5 pounds more than their 75-pound shipping limit, and using media mail meant we shipped 15 large boxes for only a few hundred dollars, as opposed to the thousands we would have had to spend to rent space on a truck. (AND, 8 of the boxes were just delivered to us this morning! I'm telling you, I am a BIG FAN of the USPS, even with all of my mail that's been lost over the years--mostly from my Upper West Side USPS branch--and the hours I've had to stand in long lines just to mail out a package--mostly while living in Astoria, which rarely had a wait of less than an hour. All in all, I find the services they provide to be excellent for the money they charge. And they brought me hundreds of pounds worth of books this morning. It's like my birthday continues!!)

We planned the trip to Jersey for this past weekend so we could be in NYC for my brother's Easter gathering, which made it easy for us to see the whole family in one shot: siblings, cousins, uncle and newly-curly-haired favorite aunt, pregnant sister-in-law and her whole family (whom I have adopted as my Other Family). Easter Sunday this year fell on my oldest brother's birthday, plus it was just 2 days before my own birthday, which meant there were cakes baked and songs sung for each of us. My 29-again birthday celebration began days early, even before Easter, when I got myself the awesome present of a haircut at a NYC hair salon that I've been wanting to go to, a salon that deals exclusively with curly hair. I spent 2 hours having my head fondled by 2 men, it was glorious!! And I got to visit with friends whom I haven't seen in months, friends who always make me feel special. And then there was the bonus of seeing my 19-year-old cousin, newly returned from a tour in Afghanistan, who came from Cleveland with a friend as an Easter surprise. I got to help a couple of Marines enjoy NYC for the first time, while celebrating my brother's birthday with a private bash in his closed-for-Easter East Village bar. It was a weekend full of celebration, a weekend full of love and good feelings, and it all kinda felt like my birthday. On our last night in Jersey, Alex and I went to dinner with my parents, then sat in front of a fire eating lemon meringue pie and playing with a kitten, AWESOME! I woke up on my birthday morning, and my favorite cherry tree, the one right in front of the room I called my own for many years, my favorite cherry tree was opening all of its little pink buds, as if to let me know that it had been waiting for me to reveal itself. A fine farewell from the east coast, and then a plane ride back to Seattle, where the sun decided to come out to welcome us home. And then, I went to my first rehearsal for the short play festival I've been cast in, which is about the best gift anyone could give me. It felt exciting to be in that room, to be starting this project, and I let everyone know that it was my birthday and they should feel free to celebrate me. No shying away from it this year!! Post-rehearsal, I went home to Alex, who greeted me at the door wearing a tie, and led me into the kitchen, where candles blazed and a lovely gourmet meal was waiting. Alex wanted to make me feel special, and he did, oh yes he did. As the minutes ticked away to April 27th, I felt special, I felt loved, I felt celebrated, I felt happy. I felt all the things a person hopes to feel on a birthday, all the things that were missing last year as I hid under my covers.

I am happy to be 29-again. I am excited for the year to come. I don't feel older; I feel happier. I feel like I am in the right place; even though I am far away from my family, I feel close to them. I feel excited for my soon-to-be-a-daddy brother and his too-beautiful-to-be-true pregnant bride, and I'm so excited to become an aunt! I feel like the miles between us are unimportant, as I am going to do whatever I can to be a part of every big occasion. I feel like the only thing that might get in the way of me doing that is the possibility of having some success as an actor out here, which feels like a very real possibility, and frankly, what a perfect dilemma to have! I feel younger than I did a year ago, which is directly connected to that feeling of hope. Last year, I felt lost, and stuck in a rut, and scared that I was never going to call myself an actor again. This year, I still feel a little lost, but more in a "This place is unfamiliar and I'm not sure where I'm going but I can't wait to figure it out" kind of way. This year, 29-again feels sexy, and fun, and energetic. This year feels good. I feel good.

What a difference a year makes. And the difference is me.