Notes from a Former Girl with the Most Cake
Notes from a Former Girl with the Most Cake
Hanging Up My Birthday Suit
I always made a big deal out of my birthday. Whether I was turning 16 or 21 or 30 or 50, I’d celebrate for a whole week, which mostly meant eating cake and being taken to restaurants.
My birthday was Tuesday (the other Monday), and, though I went to the beach for a few days before it with my sister and bought myself a fancy sweater and ate some good food, it was meh. I had no cake or Koco’s carryout. Marty made me a grilled cheese sandwich. Utah brought me a cheese Danish that made its way into the trash after none of the bites ever got sweeter. I have even been taken out for lunches and dinners and have gotten lovely gifts this year. But maybe I’m not that person anymore, the one who wants to be the girl with the most cake.
I’m not sure who I am. On the way to another birthday lunch today, I cried in my car. Our local public radio station was on, and the topic was the midlife crisis. I’ve already had mine, and I’m well past mid-life (yet another reason to eschew birthday celebrations), but according to the panel of experts, you can still call them mid-life crises until you’re over 70. Is that who I am? A person in the throes of another?
I recently diagnosed myself with adult-onset ADHD by analyzing the way I feel and taking a dozen online tests. It’s getting worse. On the drive home from the beach, I fantasized about making collages, not realizing I’ve been making random collages for at least 15 years. But if I’m not successful at selling my artwork, be they mosaics or memento moris or lamps, what would make me successful at digital collages? Is this just another way to fritter away time until I get a job? Or is it because retirement will never mean sitting around with a book?
As if I still had a schedule, I get up in the morning and go to work in the basement, making whatever shit I can make for however long I can stand at my shop table. Am I trying to give myself another project for when I’m sitting? I’m a fucking writer, after all. (Judging by this, maybe not.)
There’s a connection here that I’ll make as soon as I remember where I was going. That’s who I am now—a person who forgets where she’s going the moment she leaves the room or even the previous sentence. Oh, yeah: age. It’s always on my mind right now as I try to navigate a job search in a new world where resumes can’t just say what you’ve done well; they must make bold statistical claims and contain testimonials and key words that keep yours from being rejected by the machine that reads it.
It was easier being the girl with the most cake.
Because of my birthday and my unemployment situation and because of whatever else a therapist might make of it, my dreams (uh-oh) have become intensely focused on my age (interesting, I promise).
For several weeks, I dream that I am attending school or something that young people do, and I am alone and trying to find someone to date me. I keep falling for the most attractive young guys, around 26. They’re usually blond. I can tell they like me, but they won’t go that one extra step and ask me to the prom. And then I catch a glimpse of myself and realize I am old enough to be older than their mothers. It’s always a version of this dream.
Last night, I was looking great (still the dream), and I was trying to attract the attention of yet another blond guy in his late 20s. I felt that he was really into me, but he was avoiding me. I thought it must be the jeans I was wearing; they made me look fat. So when I checked myself out in the mirror, I realized, again, I was sixty-fucking-two years old. A MILF, maybe, but a GILF? Not a chance.
In real life, I don’t care about men except the one I’m married to. I have begun my lesbian fashion phase and really only care about flannel shirts, jumpsuits, and hoodies. And I’m fine with my age. My friends are right there with me, so nobody’s judging—except potential employers.
Are the young guys in my dreams a representation of a job I want but can’t get? Will I want to celebrate my birthday next year? Will I bake a cake to take to Yom Kippur dinner with my whole family tomorrow? Will I make more collages of lady parts? Is this a midlife crisis?
Who the hell am I?
Keep your birthday close. You can wear it in the dark.
So sorry, Leslie. I hope it passes.