Single in Sandpoint: Scarlette does not go quietly into that good night

Another September, another year of life.

     September birthdays are so strange. As a kid you always get school clothes for "presents", and as an adult you are stuck in a crunch: You're way too hung over from summer to just take a Vegas getaway, and really all you have to look forward to in the next six months is snow.

     I've often felt like I was cheated out of having a cool birthday. Damn September with its back to school, end of summer, pumpkin spice, football bullshit. Give me a break.

     When I was a kid, my grandma and my aunt used to cry on their birthdays every year. I dismissed them as freaks because when you’re eight, you don't know the cruel ways of the world. Well, this year I started crying over my birthday a good two days in advance.   

     There were several contributing factors to my particularly emotional response this year: one is that I’m pregnant, and apparently that means the only thing sadder than a birthday is pretty much every single show on TV. And when someone honks at you in traffic for no reason.

     The other contributing factor is the whole aging thing. I don't really feel old, but then there’s this nagging knowledge that I’m almost in my mid-30s. I still have a lot to figure out. I was pretty sure that by this age I’d own real estate or have fake boobs or have achieved some other societal accomplishment. Maybe I aim too high.

     Oh, and then there is there’s the Facebook factor. I log onto Facebook regularly only to read depressing posts like, "Stayed up till 10 last night, I'm getting way too old for that."  Or, "Drank a bottle of wine last night, feeling it today." 

     These posters are my age. I don't get it. You’re too old to drink a bottle of wine and function the next day and you’re in your 30s? You can't stay up for “Grey's Anatomy” anymore and you went to high school in the ’90s? Good luck with the next 40 or 50 years of your life. No, seriously, good luck. My tears are for you.

     Even – and I say this in a completely hypothetical way – if I did have a hard time staying up and barking at the moon and dancing until my new shoes filled with blood from burst blisters, I wouldn't admit it. I'm not going down with out a fight. I'm not ready for “mom jeans”, sensible shoes and declaring to my 700 or so Facebook "friends" that I’m getting old. No thanks.

     The way I see it is that you should be able to do the things you enjoy. Age may bring new responsibilities, but it shouldn't break your spirit. We should clap just as hard for our friends who run marathons as we do for those who enjoy a weekend away partying. Each activity requires a certain amount of training and planning, and if it brings the participants happiness and a new outlook on life, then go for it. Chase your dragon. Leave age out of it. You're not old until you say it out loud.

     I find the ability to seek out your own happiness more impressive than pretending. Because let’s face it, getting older requires us to "pretend" a lot of things – and if you don't know what it’s like to pretend to like a teacher, boss, food, exercise, job, relative or spouse's outfit, then you aren't officially old yet (or you have no friends or kids). 

     It's the pretending that exhausts us, not the stuff that we do for entertainment.

     This year I’m going to spend more time having fun and less time worrying about boobs and real estate. There are only so many things you can control in this life. 

     And besides, the world needs all kinds of people. It needs the yuppies, the organic-eating marathon runners, the ones who drink domestic beers, the ones who paint their face at ball games, the ones who preach, the ones who stay home and knit and the ones who like to party like rock stars.

     It also needs the ones who want to try it all.

     I mean seriously, when I see my very last September on this planet, I want those who knew me to say, " Scarlette was the kind of person who could get a base hit every time, but she always swung for the fences.

Still raging against the dying of the light,

Scarlette Quille