CONTEMPLATION

[Warning: Tough issues ahead.]

Watching Bridget Jones's Diary on TBS. Am laughing and crying and having dreadfully dirty thoughts about Colin Firth, all at the same time. (The way he simmers, never actually smiling, but somehow conveying all with his eyes, brow, profile...) Even his big girlie-man fight scene with Hugh Grant ("It's Raining Men" pulses in the background as they fight until both of them are bloodied and sweaty) leaves me all keyed up, and feeling my loneliness reassert itself.

Colin aside (blasphemy), the one thing that's really affecting me is the scene where Bridget cooks dinner for her friends to commemorate her 33rd birthday. There's a resonance there that is especially strong for me this year. I know what that's like. So hard to spend year after year planning one's own birthday, trying to banish the loneliness in advance before it ever arrives on my doorstep.

The truth: I'm tired of it already. I want what I have never had, the companionship, the stability, the support--I even want the heartbreak that pushes my friends to the emotional brink, because it meant that even in those failed relationships, there was a compelling strength. There are times when I am even envious of the pain. That's how bad it can be.

Birthdays seem as fitting a time as any for reflection. But every year, the pressure's on: what, who with, where, when. But what always gets me is the why and the how long.

Why it always seems like no matter how many friends surround me in celebration, I'm always walking home alone. How long it's been since I had anyone else plan anything for my birthday. Why I always throw these huge parties, and enjoy them, but somehow still resent the fact that I'm the one who has to plan everything in celebration of myself, which seems so self-indulgent, conceited, and artificial. How long is it going to be before He shows up? Why is it taking so long?

I love my friends. The turnout for my party was amazing, a veritable "This is Your Life," featuring cameos by camp friends and work friends, shul friends and new friends from the wonderful world of blogging. I felt very lucky; with a few drinks in me, "lucky" even felt like "euphoric."

But euphoria fades. As happy as we may feel surrounded by friends and alcohol on our birthdays, on a daily basis, we single people walk around with the world on our shoulders. We lack a security of the most basic kind. Even if we are happy to the extent that the solitary life allows, with our professional status or our freedom or our independence, we harbor a darkness that we cannot show to others. We have to keep our happy faces front and center, to woo the unseen future suitors of our lives. We banish depression to the netherworld and wear black-tie happiness at the weddings of our friends, as we shelve our feelings and our doubt about our own single stories ending happily.

And on our birthdays, and sometimes for days after, we feel the aging process wearing on us. We look to others to lift our spirits. When our spirits are up, the day is no challenge. But when night falls, we fight to submerge the darkness.

Speaking of darkness, I have to say there's nothing scarier than suddenly seeing a centipede crawling up your wall while you're watching a Stephen King movie (Salem's Lot--vampires, but no souls, like my Angel). No sleep for me tonight.

CONTEMPLATION

[Warning: Tough issues ahead.]

Watching Bridget Jones's Diary on TBS. Am laughing and crying and having dreadfully dirty thoughts about Colin Firth, all at the same time. (The way he simmers, never actually smiling, but somehow conveying all with his eyes, brow, profile...) Even his big girlie-man fight scene with Hugh Grant ("It's Raining Men" pulses in the background as they fight until both of them are bloodied and sweaty) leaves me all keyed up, and feeling my loneliness reassert itself.

Colin aside (blasphemy), the one thing that's really affecting me is the scene where Bridget cooks dinner for her friends to commemorate her 33rd birthday. There's a resonance there that is especially strong for me this year. I know what that's like. So hard to spend year after year planning one's own birthday, trying to banish the loneliness in advance before it ever arrives on my doorstep.

The truth: I'm tired of it already. I want what I have never had, the companionship, the stability, the support--I even want the heartbreak that pushes my friends to the emotional brink, because it meant that even in those failed relationships, there was a compelling strength. There are times when I am even envious of the pain. That's how bad it can be.

Birthdays seem as fitting a time as any for reflection. But every year, the pressure's on: what, who with, where, when. But what always gets me is the why and the how long.

Why it always seems like no matter how many friends surround me in celebration, I'm always walking home alone. How long it's been since I had anyone else plan anything for my birthday. Why I always throw these huge parties, and enjoy them, but somehow still resent the fact that I'm the one who has to plan everything in celebration of myself, which seems so self-indulgent, conceited, and artificial. How long is it going to be before He shows up? Why is it taking so long?

I love my friends. The turnout for my party was amazing, a veritable "This is Your Life," featuring cameos by camp friends and work friends, shul friends and new friends from the wonderful world of blogging. I felt very lucky; with a few drinks in me, "lucky" even felt like "euphoric."

But euphoria fades. As happy as we may feel surrounded by friends and alcohol on our birthdays, on a daily basis, we single people walk around with the world on our shoulders. We lack a security of the most basic kind. Even if we are happy to the extent that the solitary life allows, with our professional status or our freedom or our independence, we harbor a darkness that we cannot show to others. We have to keep our happy faces front and center, to woo the unseen future suitors of our lives. We banish depression to the netherworld and wear black-tie happiness at the weddings of our friends, as we shelve our feelings and our doubt about our own single stories ending happily.

And on our birthdays, and sometimes for days after, we feel the aging process wearing on us. We look to others to lift our spirits. When our spirits are up, the day is no challenge. But when night falls, we fight to submerge the darkness.

Speaking of darkness, I have to say there's nothing scarier than suddenly seeing a centipede crawling up your wall while you're watching a Stephen King movie (Salem's Lot--vampires, but no souls, like my Angel). No sleep for me tonight.