34

I'm not someone who remembers things.
I'm not forgetful, really. I just don't remember.

I have memories. I just don't remember the feeling or the meaning or the building of being me.

I dont find this sad or silly or odd at all. It just is. 

I prefer to live forward, I guess.

Maybe it's some kind of self-preservation tactic – so i don't have to be plagued by bad memories or self-examination.
Maybe it's just a kink in my brain's chemistry.
Maybe it's genetic makeup.
Maybe things just aren't worthy of remembering.

I'm not really one who looks back and sees clearly.

An ex-boyfriend once called me out on it.
"You're so cold," he said. "You don't care about the past. You forget it the second it's gone."
It burned me at the time. Made me squeamish and hurt my heart.
I felt like throwing up. Who wants to be cold? Not me. Never me.

But he may have had something there.
I can be a bit chilly.

I really don't harp on things. On good or bad or in between.
I just gaze at the horizon and move my feet forward and my heart upward and look forward to new days and new deeds.

I'm the typical action star in PG-13 movies. When the car blows up 10 feet behind him,  he walks into the sun without ever looking back and tosses the keys backward over his shoulder into the flames.
Onwards.
To the future.
Screw yesterday.

I'm not sure if this is a good way or a bad way or an interesting way to have lived my last 34 years.
But it's me. It's the way I've done.

So now, all of a sudden, I find myself 34.
Wondering what got me here, to this moment, who I was and how I came to be. And are there pieces of me that I've let loose or slip or shrivel up from inattention?
What was in that burning car and should I have doused the flames?

I wonder if my parents can see in me today little pieces of a sweet little blonde girl who cut the hair of all her china dolls even though she wasn't allowed to, crossed her arms, and talked back with conviction. And did that girl make me who I am today?
In a good way?

I wonder if my brothers can see in me today the strength I didn't have when we fought, screamed, hit, and tortured each other mercilessly in the 80s and 90s.
(Note: I was the torturee 100% of the time)
I wonder if the girl they picked on is now a woman they admire or appreciate or like, even a little.
I wonder if a pansy grew into a mighty oak.
I wonder if those moments in playgrounds and basements and bedrooms helped me get to here.
Gave me the good things that have built me.

34.

I wonder if there was a moment in time, a TSN-turning-point, a millisecond where I chose a path, a  direction, an opportunity and it made me me.

I wonder if those times I wavered and came so close to choosing Option B or Plan C – did they make me? Break me? Free me?

I wonder if I became who my parents had hoped?
Did I become more?
Less?
Something different?

I have 34 years of history in this body, this soul, this heart.
I can't quite recall with any degree of clarity what all those 34 years have been save for tiny moments, keyhole-views into something familiar.
I cherish those bits of cosiness.

I kind of expected more at 34 to tell you the truth.
A few more notches in my belt.
A little more love.
A bigger brood.
An easier road.
A bigger dent.
A more impactful existence.
A bit more wisdom and a little less flippancy.

But I also expected, I think, to have no idea what to expect.

At 34, I can rhyme off all the things I don't like about me in 32 seconds flat.
And I don't think that's a good thing.

The bump on my nose, the mole on my right cheek, the size of my thighs, the way I string words into mumbles and people have to say "pardon?" twice, the way I look in a bathing suit, my height, the colour of my skin, the size of my forehead, the gumminess of my smile, my rash decision-making, my posture, my introvertedness, the way I can't look strangers in the eye, the way I latch on and suffocate the things and people I love, my incessant worrying, my long list of regrets... and so it goes on.

I was thinking about this list (obviously).
All of the things that 34 years of me have produced.
Could be worse, I said out loud. Honestly.
I laughed, out loud again.
(My neighbours are going to think I'm certifiably nuts).
But really, it could be. And I get that. And I'm starting to like the bump on my nose...
My thighs, though. That's a tougher road to acceptance. But I'm working on it.

So I'm trying to look at 34 as an opportunity.

Another year to be better.
To leave the negative in the past.
To gain perspective.
To lose weaknesses.
To look forward and leap forward and breathe forward and love forward.
Another year to look in the mirror and try to accept
all that is me.
I'm not sure why it's taken this long to be okay with it.
After all, I'm equal parts of two of the most incredible people I've ever known.
I was gifted with great things.

I'm sitting here, lamp to the left, dog to the right, glasses falling to the edge of my knobby nose.
It is quiet.
The street is asleep.
And I'm wistful, of course.
I'm curious (am I who I was meant to be?)
I'm amazed (34!! Crazy!!)
I'm anxious (to do more, achieve more, and be more in the years ahead. Time is a'wastin!!)

34.
It has a nice ring to it.
It feels established and regal.
Like it's setting the stage for a future that wows.
And it's building the foundation for a history that's memorable.

34.
I have a feeling I will remember you.