It’s my birthday! I love my birthday. My family recently played a game where we answered questions like, “What’s your favorite holiday?” and a few of us in the room had ties: we named a favorite non-birthday holiday and our birthdays.

As of 8:39 a.m., I am 35 years old. My parents hadn’t necessarily envisioned having four kids. I am one of those “surprise” youngest children, a fact that no one mentioned to me until I was an adult.

(“I thought you knew,” my mother said. “Didn’t you ever wonder why there was such a big gap between you and Greg?” I don’t know, lady. Each of us is the center of our own universe, so I guess I always imagined you all were just twiddling your thumbs waiting for me to arrive!)

Growing up, my parents were careful not to blur festivities: Christmas celebrations or gifts never counted double to cover my birthday, nonsense I’m given to understand happens to some people.

I had some lovely childhood birthday parties and gatherings. I got to wear cute outfits. Now, in my 30s, I’ve been pretty intentional about setting out to celebrate myself.

When I turned 30, I had a really nice dinner party at home with my friends. I gave every guest a new book, because I wanted to. I guess that was the mood I was in. (That was the year I finished my PhD, so I bet I was looking forward to more “just because” reading coming back into my life after 12 years in high education!)

Five months later, my mother died. Seven months later, I turned 31 in a bit of a haze after a heavy year.

Two months later, I quit my job. One day later, the pandemic was declared and everything in my life went remote anyway.

The two birthdays I celebrated in pandemic life, at home, messed with my brain a little. When people get stuck on numbers, it tends to be the milestones: “leaving your 20s behind,” “hitting 40,” “waking up and you’re 50″… I’ve heard many versions of those.

But 32 got me, and so did 33. A girlfriend and I did vision boards some time that spring I turned 32. I had been thinking about that number constantly. Actually, it was a series: 32-62-92. I put them on my board, hoping to find some clarity.

My mom found out she was pregnant with me—again, surprise!—when she was 32. It connected me to her.

She died at 62, just 30 years off, 30 years together. Fewer than how many she’d had when she had me. (Again, I know we’re each the center of our universes, but what a good reminder that our parents were people with lives of their own before we came on the scene.)

That number has some baggage: my dad’s dad died at 62. My dad’s eldest brother died at 62. (Can you imagine their sigh of relief when the next sibling reached 63? Somebody had to break that streak.)

Juxtapose that with 92: the age that my father has, famously, for years, declared that he will work until. He borrowed that figure from two mentors of his, men of integrity he admired deeply. Both worked with pride and vitality pretty much “up until the end.”

It’s not necessarily my goal, but there’s so much meaning carried around in that number, too.

I couldn’t escape them… 32-62-92. What would those numbers come to mean for me?

When I reached 33, something changed. The numbers had settled down, and things were less swirly. I was less caught up in my life. I was riding the waves and minding the tides.

I felt more like the protagonist again. I happened to be reading one of Jane Fonda’s memoirs, and something she said about the acts of her life clicked for me.

My life in three acts might break at 33, again at 66, and then maybe the curtains will close at 99. Those are numbers I could deal with. It sounded good to me!

So 33 and 34 have brought a lot of peace and a lot of confidence. I’m only a few years into Act 2, after all. I’m just now gearing up for whatever this act brings! The trappings are quite different from what they were in Act 1, and I’ve got Act 3 Caitie still to think about: how is what I’m doing now setting her up? She’ll have her own goals and schemes and dance numbers and all of it.

But for now, the plan is to thrive at 35! It’s time to celebrate.

After all—it is my birthday.

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