The last thing I said at 36 was I love you to my daughter. Sprawled on a tiny mattress next to our bed cuddling a stuffed animal sloth and unicorn, she fell into sleep like water—submersed immediately, a placid half smile on her face, curls unspooling across her forehead.
I learned a lot in 36; I loved a lot in 36. This year I nearly left everything—my job, my marriage, the city I live in. And this year—after knowing I could leave, after making preparations, after attending interviews and open houses, after looking at maps and strategies, after 3 AM nerves and 8 AM what should I dos—I stayed. There is a power in knowing you can leave—it is a muscle to know you’d be willing. It is the difference between settling and choosing. You are still in the same place, but the intention is as different as a fire you start. As the year ended, I felt the warmth of it—the choosing.
I chose to fall in love with my partner again, a choosing through winter and argument and consideration. A choosing of reaching arms and third, fourth, fifth chances. A choosing through grief and loss, the ache of pastels sent as love letters and goodbyes across state lines. A choosing of Saturday mornings, his warm hand on the small of my back, the sounds of her feet running room to room to show us one more small joy, another. A choice that is still opening both of us and turning us, day by day, toward one another. Closer. Seeing that we haven’t seen in years. Pulling us through layers and layers of hard faith, choices like callouses, to the softness we are careful to touch.
I chose to stay at my job after 17 interviews, a handful of finalist moments, and two job offers. I took stock. I looked around. I had a difficult conversation with my leader about respect, care, and need—the minutiae of privacy in meeting agendas, the honesty in saying I truly did not think you liked or respected me as an employee. I looked hard at what was possible, what was right, what felt good. I put my feet on the ground. I asked myself what do you want and I meant it. I respected myself enough to turn inward and say what you need, we will do. And I needed to stay. In this moment.
So I honored myself and did.
The world shifted under my feet at 36, so I turned to books as solid ground.
This year I read. Every single Sarah Mass book with my closest friend. All sixteen of them. In a hotel room in Iowa before an Ani DiFranco concert. On the couch of our apartment surrounded by catalpa trees aching to bloom. On the back porch swing while drinking a cup of black coffee and watching the swallows chase mosquitos across the patch of sky above our yard. I read books about witches from writers of color—books where women found belonging in communities protecting them with fierce magic. I read books about magic and journey from New Zealand writers with an Irish tilt—where the story wove into itself and at the end even the villains found freedom.
I read a 600 page story about a family so broken my cousin called it a haunted house of a book. I read heartbreaking poems by Robert Haas and Tracy K Smith. I read the New York Times nearly every morning and sometimes in the dead of night. I didn’t count the things I read—I didn’t hold any measurement at all. I escaped and returned in reading: I fell against words like a bed frame. I took what I needed. And I refused to compare with the shoulds of any booklist.
I ended the year beginning Something in the Woods Loves You and the author’s prose pushed me into 37:
The heron told me that my better days were not beyond reach and that the world was more than pain, bitter news, and sleepless nights.
There are wonders here.
Things worth experiencing, worth knowing.
Magic hidden in plain sight.
Bats can hear shapes. Plants can eat light. Bees can dance maps. We can hold all these ideas at once and feel both heavy and weightless with the absurd beauty of it all. These are some facts that are easy to overlook.
These are facts that saved my life.
The world calls to us—to see what truly matters. To forget all the urgencies and insistences and to remember that in which we exist. Your clean kitchen does not matter. An organized car falls to the wayside. The conversation at work may be forgotten. The cancelled appointment falls away to time.
It is us. Here. And that is all.
At the end of 36 I drove into nature with him and her—six hours away from the city and into the dunes of sand, the yellow and red woods, the waves rushing in from miles away. This is what it is—the heron reminds us.
You do not know what you want until you are away from what you believe you cannot live without. We are willing to compromise ourselves into circles, tie ourselves into ever-tightening knots, give until we are taken for the things we love. And at 36 something changed for me. Suddenly I had given what I could. Suddenly I was not willing to compromise anymore. So I began to leave. And I found, shockingly, that I could. I was strong enough to leave. I was worthy enough to leave. I was whole enough to leave. Something within me stretched and filled the space of my body, my mind—it was myself, my wants, desires, needs, and my peace.
This newfound self would not acquiesce its needs. For years I trained myself to want very little, to ask for just enough, to give all I had, and to live in shame if I asked for more. 36 opened its jaws like a lion. 36 said no with a force like a roar. 36 sat back, months in, fat and happy it asked for another meal. 36 found a spot in the sun and stretched into the light.
This weekend is live music twice in one day. The singer waiting for me to return from a bookstore before playing Harvest Moon and smiling at me afterward saying, for you. This weekend is turkey sandwiches with coleslaw and avocado from a roadside market while the sun dips into the water across the street. This weekend is dancing with her in front of a bonfire at 8 PM and watching for frogs by the river. This weekend is buying a dress covered in flowers like Murakami after getting the go ahead from two advice-giving women with crows feet crowding their eyes.
This weekend is playing pretend—a dragon, a king, and a princess live within us, her brother and sister are coming for a visit. At the art museum, an exhibit on altars and shrines adorns the walls, and she says she is our teacher, instructing us to listen as she tells us stories from the blue chair in the corner of the room—a precious thing on an altar of her own, the most precious thing we’ve ever known. This morning she tucks her stuffed animals in and reads them a story. Take care of them she instructs. I will I tell her as he takes her on a walk so I can write. I will.
We wake up on the last day of 36. Drink coffee by the mill. Find small fish in the river—her tiny hand reaching as she laughs at the wonder of them. We rent bikes and cycle across the hills and into the woods, asking over our shoulders you okay? to her all good! while we wind our ways down forest paths. We climb a half mile up a dune and it turns into Elsa’s castle. We roll down with sand across our stomachs, our toes, caught like glitter in our eyelashes.
When we go back, we switch, and I am pulling her in the trailer. On the uphill, he shouts encouragement to me, offering to help, offering love, making jokes while weaving his bike back and forth between us. And at the top we both yell out the accomplishment. We’ve made it! The downhill sings through me, and I find myself near tears. I have carried them—him, her, us—and now it is the sweet pine wind that greets me, that pushes me forward, that says This is 37. There will be more uphills, but tears in my eyes, I know I will be ready.
I love you endlessly, and I'm so proud of you. You deserve all those moments that make you happy and make you want to stay. Those moments are precious, and I'm so so happy you've grabbed them. 36 was a lot - so much in one year. You're so strong and brave, and I'm so happy that you're going into 37 with so much light and joy.
Happy happy birthday, sister!