Birthdays are a time of change and newness, more so than the calendar New Year (I’ve basically never made New Year’s resolutions), or even a new school year (my secondary marker of change, around the time fall begins). It’s purely coincidence that my birthday happens in that awkward, mercurial time-estuary between spring and summer, but it’s just the kind of transitional space that makes taking on new life perspectives seem entirely natural.
Some birthday-centric changes come on easier than others. One year I apparently refused to swing by myself until I reached that next age milestone. My mom had to push the swing for me through May 27th; on the 28th, I was out there on my own, kicking my little legs like I’d spent my whole young life on that swing. There were a couple years when I decided different foods were acceptable, like sliced tomatoes or un-pickled cucumbers. When I turned 16, I was very aware that when I was six, my parents had told me we could go back to Disney World “in ten years”.
This year has been weirder. I turned 28 on May 28th: my “golden birthday”, a lucky one, the birthday I’d always thought was so very far away. And I think that means… I’m an adult now? Sure, legally I’ve been an “adult” for the last decade. Physiologically, I was a fully-grown and developed human being at 25. Most people would chart the next big milestone at 30, but to me, this one feels more important.
The spookiest part about turning 28 and being a golden, adult-status person is that I don’t have a concrete idea of what that entails, despite having long accepted that this would be the right time for it. Ideas like “I can swing now” or “I can eat tomatoes” are a lot more specific than “I’m an adult”. But, like the changing weather, there are things happening around me this year which reinforce this new truth, this new reality.
The biggest change has been my parents moving. They’ve moved out of my childhood home in the cities to a house in a more rural area, adding about two hours one-way to any visit. It’s something they’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and I’m happy they finally get to do it. They’ll be closer to my dad’s hometown and some of his family. When I saw pictures of the house, it absolutely looked like the right one for them. Everything fits, but the change is still strange.
In order to make the move work, my dad is retiring. My parents have lived in the same house and my dad has had the same job for longer than I’ve been alive. It feels weird knowing my dad won’t be out in his truck somewhere nearby. I used to lock my keys in my car a lot and run out of gas sometimes, so the security of him or someone else in the network of known and trusted Minnesota State Patrol guys being able to rescue me has been pretty important.
I have about as much knowledge of how to deal with these things as I did when my dad shaved off his mustache for the first time in my life. (He’s grown it back since then.) I remember walking into the kitchen as he was hanging up his keys on the corkboard near the side door. With his back to me, I was a thousand percent certain it was my dad. It was his shape, in his leather jacket, and his hat over his ears, his ring on his hand. But the moment he turned around, I had a brief flash of dissociative panic: Who was this man? I was sure it was Dad. Is it Dad? He looks wrong. Where am I? What’s happening? Then he said something and I recognized his voice, too. His eyes and his nose were the same. The rest of him seemed the same. I stared at the absence of his mustache for days afterward, though. It took a long time to compute.
My mom is working for me now, which is also bizarre. For the past several weeks, I’ve been doing contract sewing work for a guy who sells garb at the Minnesota and Bristol Renaissance festivals. Mom asked to sub-contract for me, so I’ve been separating out work for her to take home, too. It was my mom who first taught me how to sew 20 years ago, helping me cut out patterns so I could put the pieces together, and now I’m doing that for her instead.
I’m starting my own business. I wasn’t brave or certain or confident enough to do it before, but now I’m ready to try. I’m still anxious as heck, of course, but I feel much better about this attempt at entrepreneurship than I ever have about working for other people. Faire & Fable, as I’m calling it, will be a collection of apparel suitable for Renaissance fairs, LARP (live-action roleplay), and everyday wear. I want it to straddle the line of acceptability in historical/fantasy settings and modern life. Something that will unify those spaces and let you move easily between them. I’ll be making garments out of natural fibers that will be comfortable, versatile, and last a long time, and I’m going to try my darndest to create as little waste as possible. Fashion on the whole isn’t a very sustainable industry, but I still want to do what I can.
I’ve also recently discovered that I might have ASD (autism spectrum disorder). There’s a long waitlist for testing, so I haven’t been officially diagnosed yet, but the context of level 1 or “high-functioning” autism (formerly known as Asperger’s) gives me such ground-breaking context for my own thoughts and actions that it almost feels like I’m a new person. I’ll be baffled if the test doesn’t result in a diagnosis, but either way the insight has been incredibly validating. It somehow means that I can safely be both an adult and a weirdo.
So, it’s shaping up to a big one, this age. This birthday marks a personal era unlike any that have come before it. And, ultimately, I think it’ll be good. Apparently some people also call a golden birthday your “champagne” birthday, so have a glass of sparkly bubbles, and wish me luck on the next adventure. Cheers.✨
