The NYC Marathon seems to have set the pace for the rest of my November. My blog began to hit its stride. My first piece of published writing ran in a national magazine. And today I turn 26. (Those 0.2 miles don’t count for much anyway).
I spent my 26th birthday alone in NYC. While it would have been nice to be surrounded by friends and family, as I walked down the west side of Broadway from the nineties to the seventies soaking up the sun, I was thrilled to have a day with no agenda where I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.
I started my day with a “Body Conditioning” class at my new gym, Equinox. It was pretty grueling but I knew I wasn’t alone: the man to my right began grunting during the warm-up as he lunged up and down on his step, waving his arms haphazardly in the air. By the end of the class he was groaning with every push-up and crunch, and yelling swear words with a heavy British accent, which somehow made it seem less inappropriate.
Afterward I walked to H&H to pick up an “Everything” bagel. I had been complaining to Millie that I had yet to experience a truly fabulous NY bagel when she pointed out that we were standing in front of H&H Bagels, somewhat of an institution. Indeed, it was the best bagel I have ever eaten. And because I had only myself to think of, I could indulge in the toasted garlic without a care (see post: ”Date or no date?”).
A hot shower and two episodes of “Sex and the City” later, I lit for Broadway again, ready to shop. I was thrilled to find that Club Monaco’s gift to me was a sale on several items I’d been eyeing since early fall. Later that night my friend Rita and I shuttled down the Lower East Side to spend the evening at Schiller’s, where our caramelized banana split arrived crowned with a sparkler.
My birthday was really a culmination of a quiet weekend alone in the city and this gave me some time to consider whether there was any significance to turning 26.
Most of us have some opinion about our birthdays and the prospect of getting older. We live it up, or shy away from the attention. We enjoy hearing from friends, or would rather they ignore it. We relish the excuse to eat cake and receive gifts, or we prefer as little fanfare as possible. Some look forward to the year ahead full of new possibilities and give thanks for the lessons and gifts of the year that has passed. Others would rather keep their age to themselves or turn 39, again.
In fact, almost all of us experience a turning point at which getting older goes from “good” to “bad.” Of course there are those who claim to really rejoice in aging, but it’s a reality that in our culture it is an insult to call someone “old”. It’s quite possible that “26” is the “bad” number for me. On my personal timeline, as you go through your twenties, getting older takes on an exponential quality. You age much more going from “25” to “26” than from “24” to “25”. Perhaps this comes from feeling like once you’ve rounded the corner from “25” to “26”, you’re just heading toward “30”. That’s just not a number I really feel I can identify with.
Many would chide me for this; “30” is young and so is “26”. And no matter how much older I get, people still tell me I’m young. But at some age this is going to stop. Or maybe it never stops altogether but just gradually becomes more infrequent as there are fewer and fewer people older than you to affirm your relative youth.
Still, I enjoy celebrations and milestones for the way they help us tell the stories of our lives. I like to consider where I was this time last year, or the year before that, and to acknowledge that I had no idea what my 26th year would have in store and how I could never have imagined all the changes, discoveries, surprises, and opportunities.
I select a few moments to replay in my mind, some mundane, some monumental. Cross country skiing with my girlfriends near Tahoe in January. Coming to NYC with my mom to interview for my job in February. Dinner with my younger brother at a diner in D.C. in May. A ride on the Staten Island Ferry with my dad in July. Trying to make my sister laugh over the phone when she was having a very bad day in September. Teaching my nephew how to jump in a pile of leaves in October. And finally, the mile markers of November.
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