It's My Birthday and I'll Write if I Want To

Birthdays + reflection + a creative exercise with third-person storytelling

Birthdays turn her to mush (she's a memory hoarder). In 2019, I wrote these words as the opening line of a blog post I published called, “And This Is 30.”

I’m a deep thinker and feeler (always), but on birthdays especially, I love a good excuse to reflect and write my story. I remember sitting in Barnes & Noble with my laptop and chai latte at a wooden table in the café, writing this blog post where I chronicled an entire decade, feeling wildly sentimental about my 20s despite how long I had spent wishing them away.

Readers commented that this post was beautiful and nostalgic. I revisited this piece often, but that felt like a selfish choice when I needed a trip down memory lane. Why did other readers find my highly specific detailed account of my 20s so relatable?

At 21, she wears a cheetah print dress, fit like a shrunken glove…

At 23, she buys a new black pencil skirt, hers split at the seam one day at the office. (Is this growth?)…

At 26, she prays for nice friends in a new city. They come. They eat popsicles and fried everything at the Texas State Fair, swim laps, reserve the movie room for Gilmore marathons, meet up in the clubroom for another round of pool…

And this is 30.

At 30, she loses socks in the laundry, for the first time. She packs her husband a lunch, waves goodbye through the clear storm door, inching one finger (their thing), kittens underneath her feet begging for food (always).

Here’s the magic in this type of storytelling and what I would add to this story today on my 35th birthday…