Instagram’s algorithm started showing me 30th birthday content the other day. Which cuts deep, because in just a few days, my sister should have been turning 30. The joyful parties, jokes about being “over the hill,” and one reel of a girl lying in a fake coffin while her friends and family all eulogized her as her youth was gone all seemed like blips in my day, but tonight they’re all rising to the surface. I hadn’t realized they were stewing away in my subconscious.
Instead I find myself doing the same thing I always do—turning emotions to numbers, overthinking ideas that have no start or end, and finally accepting I have to just sit in my sadness.
30 years old. My sister made it 95% of the way there. A couple of years ago, I had started wheels in motion to fly my sister out to where I live and celebrate this milestone with her. Now I am sitting in my apartment crying about why I wanted to wait for an arbitrary milestone instead of impulsively just doing it the moment the thought crossed my mind. There was supposed to be more time.
My relationship with time and the future is still fraught. Sometimes I am find myself making assumptions the old version of me would have, in the Before, planning life like it’s a given that the runway is decades long still. And then I’ll suddenly and inexplicably find myself unable to feel motivation to do something I “should” do because the heavy feeling of wondering “what’s the point?” takes over. Any one of us could be dead tomorrow. Or not. I go back and forth on which one is actually a scarier prospect.
I haven’t quite figured out yet what I will do on my sister’s birthday, but I won’t let it pass by. But it will be a lonely celebration, because there is no one within several thousand miles of me that will even know what I will be walking through that day. I could, obviously, tell some people, but there are several people who could know but forgot, and I don’t have it in me to pull myself back open to tell anyone else. Not this year. Maybe next.
Happy early birthday, little sister. I’d give just about anything to hug you one more time. I’ll celebrate the fact that now for 30 years the idea of you has existed, and that’s still a beautiful thing. ❤
Unmoored Sister 