It was going to be the perfect night. The day had been hot, and I sweated all day under the brutal September sun, moving furniture and stringing together dozens of lights that seemed to be never-ending. My parents’ boxer, Milton, panted as he followed me around the property as I performed my various tasks. Finally, exhausted by watching me work, he lay down in a shady spot and took a nap. How I wished I could do the same! But I had a birthday party to put on, and it wasn’t going to be just any birthday party. It was going to be mine, and I was turning 30.
It was the birthday I’d been dreading for years. So much of my identity had been wrapped up in my youth. I was a “young woman,” a “young professional,” or the “young girlfriend” to my 40-something boyfriend. A successful photographer, a columnist, and a businesswoman poised to take over her parents’ empire, all at the age of 29! And now, suddenly my accomplishments didn’t sound so impressive at age 30. When my father was young, he was told that you couldn’t be a genius if you didn’t publish a book before turning 30. He squeaked past by finishing The Dominant Man at 29. Here I was, 30 already, and I hadn’t even started on my book. I guess I’m not a genius.
I didn’t want my 20s to go. I mean, I really, really didn’t. Like a petulant child, I wrapped myself around the legs of my 29th year, wailing loudly as it continued to shuffle awkwardly towards my 30th birthday. I studied the wrinkles under my eyes for so long I probably gave myself new ones and collected opinions for the best botox job in town. I checked my butt in the mirror each day to see if gravity was taking its toll yet and listened anxiously for the sound of my biological clock starting to tick. In short, I drove myself crazy in anticipation of a day that simply altered a number that we use to determine our place in a chronological timeline. It was hardly the apocalypse—it wasn’t like I was going to suddenly explode on my thirtieth birthday. Was I?
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t going to explode. But I really wanted my birthday party to blow up. I invited tons of people (knowing only three-quarters would probably show), decorated outside with scores of lights and candles, filled coolers with booze and non-alcoholic drinks, and hired a live blues band to play. My good friend Aria Giovanni spent two days cooking an enormous, incredible spread for the guests. If I was going to have to turn 30, I was going to make sure I had a damn good time doing so.
The guests flocked in, many bearing presents. I received many touching cards and wonderful gifts, but none as great as the present I received from the very people who hired me to write for Sex.com: Ciara and Del. Ciara had been bugging me for photos of my dogs, which I thought was perhaps for some feature of people’s pets on sex.com (though in retrospect that makes no sense for this kind of site). It turns out that they had an artist do an incredibly accurate caricature of my dogs—they captured the personality of Poe and Bonnie perfectly! I realized what a silly and fanatical dog owner I was when the picture almost brought tears to my eyes.
But it was the next event that really did bring tears to my eyes until they spilled over onto my cheeks. It was time for the birthday cake, and as we were ushered outside, I joked that I had no idea why everyone was suddenly flocking out to the backyard. The band began to play “Happy Birthday,” and my friend Randy sang at the microphone, lending a beautiful, melodic voice to a song sung mostly out of key by the rest of the guests.
And suddenly I knew. This is what’s important in life: being surrounded by my friends and family on an important day in my life, and virtually swimming in the love of those crowded around me. All of those things that had mattered to me so much in my 20s—the career, the car, the clothes and the shoes and the handbags, the egotistical boyfriends and the inconsequential crap that I coveted to make myself look good on the outside—couldn't compare to the smiles and the hugs of the people who care about who you are on the inside.
My birthday wasn’t about “getting old,” it was about growing up and finally understanding what really matters in life. It’s something you can’t touch, but it’s something you definitely feel, deep down in your heart and soul. As cliché as it may sound, there is only one word we have been able to use to describe it, and that’s love. As I faced down my heavily lit cake, it was the feeling of this love that made me smile, then cry, and ultimately sputter, instead of blow, out my candles.
It really was the perfect night.