Yesterday was my birthday, the Opening Day of my 39th year. My birthday was filled with magical sweetness from my family and friends and I feel so loved and I hope to carry this feeling with me as long as I can.
As the well wishes slow, I am considering what I want out of this year. I liked telling my January babies this year that they didn’t turn 39 until I did. Now that March 27th has happened for them (sorry, babes), when do I turn 39 for real? I admit that I’m looking over my shoulder and looking at the things I didn’t accomplish last year or the year before and so on and so forth. But does any of it matter? I don’t think I’ve felt connected to my age for a long time considering the elasticity of the past 8 or 9 years. Did something happen yesterday or in 2016? Tomorrow or the day the president said to try drinking bleach? How do you differentiate the same date from one year to the next?I feel like the slip and slide of time has just rendered most of what I feel about my own age useless. I do feel like it’s a privilege to age but also, I am baby! Maybe if I was more satisfied with myself, I wouldn’t feel this disconnected to time but is this just my accounting for time I perceive to have wasted? I can’t be spending the second day of my 39th season accounting for wasted time but instead, I’m going to work on what I can, enjoy my time, and hope to positively build on what I’ve started. As The Hold Steady often says, “Let this be my annual reminder// that we can all be something bigger.” Can I? Here’s to 364 days of trying.
This Week’s Vocabulary
Daily Double Clue, Double Jeopardy, Jeopardy! Episode #9057
Peregrination: a journey, especially a long and meandering one
This round of Tournament of Champions was wild! These guys just knew so much stuff! I was so impressed by their level of gameplay and was interested in the stuff they got wrong. Troy Meyer didn’t quite read the question correctly on this Daily Double clue and got the incorrect derivative the Jeopardy! gods were seeking. I hadn’t heard of the verb form peregrinate or the noun form peregrination.
I’ve heard of Peregrine falcons-—they did a fundraiser for them in the Gossip Girl books!
I intended to save this word for an idea I had about all of the words I don’t know while I’m watching Jeopardy! but this word was ripe for discussing a minor birthday crisis that I think I’ve already solved by listening to The Hold Steady.
Jeopardy! is often a font of words that I have just looked up for my newsletter. It does make me feel a little silly for not knowing but what is Jeopardy! if not a celebration of plumbing the unknown in order to make it known. In the Paulo Friere of it all, you must know what you don’t know and then make sure that you learn it so you can know it.
Practical Applications
Something I’ve been doing more often lately is spending the whole day reading on the weekends. I do not have children, so this is a luxury afforded to me. I could argue that I also need time to decompress but ultimately, it’s my luxury, so I’m taking it. I spent the weekend reading Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon in preparation for blowing through the e-ARC of its forthcoming sequel Past Present Future. This book is in one of my favorite genres: the last day of school. (See also: Sloppy Firsts series, Can’t Hardly Wait, Dazed and Confused, Wet Hot American Summer. For extra credit, an older sibling of the same genre: The Before Trilogy)
On the last day of school, academic rivals Rowan and Neil team up to compete in the school scavenger hunt for the last time before graduation. They learn a lot about each other and themselves while peregrinating around Seattle’s touristy landmarks and cool locals-only destinations, searching for clues. As they prepare to leave Seattle and their rivalry in the past, they begin to question if they would have been better off friends this whole time. Did they waste precious time and what they’ll end up with after four hard years of competition is a heaping serving of regret? When we reach the end of things, it’s natural to question if you made a mistake or is there anything you wish you could do differently. I remember my last day of high school— it feels like it JUST happened even though I know it’s creeping on 21 years ago. How can I be 39 if I was so recently 18 and also I’ve been 34 since birth? Getting from A to C by way of the peregrination of B isn’t so much regret but a keen curiosity about the roads less traveled by. The path of B is full of stuff and the fractal branches of what ifs and considerations for potential paths. Looking back (and feeling weird about it) doesn’t do any good so head forward in a Jeremy Bearimy-like direction and try.
Love,
Andrea
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