Of birthdays and deathdays
Nov. 10th, 2009 04:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitchen_kinkI've had a busy week thus far. I've seen two practice clients, attended one rehearsal, gone to the gym twice, written an article, and rebuilt my wardrobes (a never-ending project due to the incompetence of IKEA). Tonight I don't know what I'm doing, and I like it that way.
Today I'm also celebrating my birthday. I feel the strangeness of this; the strangeness of being 35. I'm about to exit a demographic: a year from now I will no longer be in the coveted 18-35 advertising target group, I will be disallowed from participating in Boston TNG functions (not that I really did anyway), and I am officially in the "over 35" camp of women who had better have a baby soon if they're gonna, because otherwise Very Bad Things could happen. I am exiting youth and entering a risk group.
On the radio today, I heard part of the memorial service for the victims of the Fort Hood shootings, and found myself crying in the car over both the band's rendition of "America the Beautiful," and the traditional roll call. The commanding officer calls out the names of the people in his unit, and either they answer, crisply, "Yes, Sargeant Major!" or their names echo into the silence. Something about this simple ritual moved me greatly, especially the controlled hoarseness in some of the soldiers' voices. With my own sense of mortality comes an immense gratitude, an appreciation of my life on earth. And a great confusion about what it all might mean, if anything. It's especially in times like this when everything seems terribly strange, and meaningless, and lost, and yet also beautiful and brilliant and sad.
I'm not really sure what we're doing here, or whether it matters. But at least today, the question is in my head, and in my heart. And when it's there, I know that I'm at least doing something right.
Today I'm also celebrating my birthday. I feel the strangeness of this; the strangeness of being 35. I'm about to exit a demographic: a year from now I will no longer be in the coveted 18-35 advertising target group, I will be disallowed from participating in Boston TNG functions (not that I really did anyway), and I am officially in the "over 35" camp of women who had better have a baby soon if they're gonna, because otherwise Very Bad Things could happen. I am exiting youth and entering a risk group.
On the radio today, I heard part of the memorial service for the victims of the Fort Hood shootings, and found myself crying in the car over both the band's rendition of "America the Beautiful," and the traditional roll call. The commanding officer calls out the names of the people in his unit, and either they answer, crisply, "Yes, Sargeant Major!" or their names echo into the silence. Something about this simple ritual moved me greatly, especially the controlled hoarseness in some of the soldiers' voices. With my own sense of mortality comes an immense gratitude, an appreciation of my life on earth. And a great confusion about what it all might mean, if anything. It's especially in times like this when everything seems terribly strange, and meaningless, and lost, and yet also beautiful and brilliant and sad.
I'm not really sure what we're doing here, or whether it matters. But at least today, the question is in my head, and in my heart. And when it's there, I know that I'm at least doing something right.
