New Year’s Resolution
Peridot
Today I become 26 years of age. Like a butterfly, that is turning 26 years old. Or a beautiful swan about to say, “Hey, it’s my birthday.”
Looking Back
Part of my birthday celebration involves looking back to ten years ago.
Ten years ago, I did not have a laptop. Ten years ago, I didn’t yet blog, probably perhaps because I didn’t want to have the intense inclination to read, didn’t want to suffer from Writerness and its prognosis although I knew it was incurable — so, to balance, or deny, I took to my 35mm camera. It’s what I did when I wasn’t asleep, when I wasn’t in class, when I wasn’t wondering why I couldn’t just be Scully from the X-Files.
At Present
Technically, ten years later, I still don’t have a laptop, but it’s more complicated than never-having-had-one-before, and, you know what, this story is about aging, not about how struggling writers are supposed to wrestle with creative blockage and chronic, possibly-terminal, confusion, not about how they need to steal office pens now to finish their novel, so, you know what, I’m just gonna go home, ok? I have to go. No, it’s fine. Don’t walk me to my car.
Before I Go
Before I go, here’s the reason for all this: I’ve decided that for the entirety of my 26th year, I will be 16 again! It’ll be the year of my vanity! Why not! I’m just as close to my dream life and career as I was 10 years ago! My camera will be my best friend again! My camera won’t ever send me rejection letters! I’m gonna own my age, by admitting how young I actually feel even though I’m nearing thirty! I didn’t plan on this! I should’ve had a divorce by now!
Bikinis
Where is this coming from? Last year, around the time I was freaking out about aging, I watched (part of) a documentary in which someone said Nora Epheron regretted not having worn a bikini for the entirety of HER 26th year. She advised ladies to enjoy one’s youth by wearing a bikini and not taking it off until the 34th year. So, you know what, Ms. Ephron, I’m taking your advice to use what you got until you ain’t got it anymore, and I’m going to reinterpret it to mean that I should enjoy my youth by monkeying around as I see fit for at least one whole year, because someday I won’t be able to anymore.
I’ll show these coming pictures to my future granddaughters sometime, and say, “Back in the day, there were trees you could sit under. In this one here, where I’m posing naked, it was called a palm tree.”
