3 Dec 2023

Birthdays are interesting days, really just another day yet also the real new years.

“Vanity” by Auguste Toulmouche (1870)

Usually, I’m excited to get older because it means that I’m learning, and learning is what I enjoy most about living.

My orientation as a woman has been very anti-aging. I’ve never had an issue giving out my age, but there has always been this conscious hesitation that I ignore because I refuse to be ashamed of my age. Also, ever-present, is an insistent whisper that claims dreading getting older is the proper mindset.

Fortunately, my concept of beauty skews in favor of maturity. There’s this allure that draws me to women like Miranda Priestly that youth cannot offer.

However, this year I’ve had some reluctance assuming my new age. This hesitation is not related to the bias that a woman’s worth is indirectly proportional to the years she has lived, but because, for the first time in my life, I delayed the status quo.

“Dolce far niente” by Auguste Toulmouche (1877)

For the greater part of the year, I put up resistance against the laid-down path. This pseudo-decision led to months of battling the same options and getting mentally fatigued. Eventually, I gave in to the safety of the expected. However, the few months “lost” to rebellion have weighed on me like a waste.

I think, “I would have been younger at the point I am now.”

I’ve had several roadblocks slow me down, but so far, those speed bumps have been welcomed because they offered much-needed breaks and were out of my control. However, this pause that I fashioned for myself has dampened my excitement at getting older. I’m aware there’s no reason to bother over such a minute delay, but my mind will not listen to itself.

Anyways…

Birthdays are interesting days. They are milestones that need only the effort of staying alive to cross. And that’s an achievement, isn’t it? Given that the odds do not favour living in Nigeria.

Birthdays are really just another day, yet also the real new years. This framing can turn them into hours where we maul over missed targets and spiral down abysses of existential dread.

“Young Woman in an Interior” by Auguste Toulmouche (1870)

But such thoughts are just any day to me. My concern today is…

Where is the cake? Where are the credit alerts and neatly wrapped presents and food trays? Let me not get disappointed because maybe the day will get better, but it seems because I’m currently poor, I can’t have a special day. I don’t care for the cringe birthday song or even the most thoughtful wishes. Give me money.

Well, I’ll pretend it’s cool. I’ll pretend I’m not utterly let down by how my so-called friends and family have treated me today. As I write this, hunger hovers around me like the angel of death. But it’s fine. It’s great. It’s, dare I say, perfect.

(I joke, I joke. I kid, I kid.)

“The Reluctant Fiancée” by Auguste Toulmoouche (1866)

Anyways… Let me conclude this entry with some of the things I carried from my 25th year.

1. It can help to project into the future with thoughts that are the worst-case scenario because when it finally comes, it will never be as bad as your ruminations.

2. Thinking is literally the worst thing you can do. The best way to live is without a single thought in your head.

3. There’s a reason why the beaten path is the beaten path.

4. Resisting the status quo can teach you so much and show you other roads that can lead you to authentic success.

5. People are very nuanced. It is impossible to meet someone and share a ton of time with them without finding things that need effort to overlook or address.

6. If you often feel stressed out by the compromises demanded by a relationship, then it is time to leave.

7. If you keep a very open mind, you will never know right from wrong.

8. Finally,

Happy Birthday to me!

Till next time. Like, share, and connect with Kuffy Eyo.