Another trip around the sun

Marking my 36th birthday + a list of intentions for the coming year

May 24, 2024

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turned-on lights outside houses — Not where I live, but I’m into the vibe! // *photo by Shaun Montero on Unsplash*

By the time this email goes out, it will be the morning of my 36th birthday.

Other writers and creative folks I keep up with have found such original and interesting ways to mark their solar returns through their writing.

Thirty five things I know at thirty five, a list-making exercise after my own heart.
What you do when no one is watching, a prayer for living in greater integrity.
You Are a Person, Not a Pickle , a trove of wisdom collected over 39 years.

How do I want to honor the finale of this last trip around the sun, and punctuate the start of the next one?

I posed that very question to a blank page in my Buddy notebook last Saturday morning and, between slow sips of coffee, made a long list of anything and everything that sounded like it might be a pleasurable way to spend the day:

Take myself out for morning coffee.
Discover a new-to-me stationery shop.
Traverse the aisles of a bookstore.
Dip into secondhand shops and try on something daring.
Find the perfect place to grab a salad for lunch.
Or maybe bánh mì.
Wander through the Virginia Museum of Fine Art.
Walk along the canals downtown.
Choose a slice of cake from the case at Fat Rabbit.
Get a massage. Pay for the hot stones.
Make it home in time for that writing workshop.
Eat dinner al fresco.

In the end, I stitched a handful of these ideas together into a loosely-held plan for how I’d spend the day, taking myself out and inviting desire to lead.

When I look at the list, I see an itinerary, yes—but also, a list of commitments I want to keep to myself at 36 and beyond.

Last year when a snowstorm derailed her well-laid birthday plans, Leslie Stephens wrote:

“I had been planning my idea of a perfect day, but the real opportunity was to use my birthday as a chance to practice the way I want to live my next year.”

Something about this struck a chord, especially in this uniquely liminal space between the end of one trip around the sun and the start of the next. In some ways, I've taken a page from Leslie's book and planned a day that also reflects my intentions for the coming year.

01
—
I will savor the city I live in, and engage with the world outside of these four walls.

My husband and I are coming up on the two year anniversary of leaving Northern Virginia and moving to Richmond.

Getting settled after the move was a process that took more time and energy than I was really prepared for. But now, two years in, it feels important to be here—a resident who's engaging rather than preparing to someday, once all the boxes are unpacked and all the drafts in my head are written and polished.

I don't bemoan my homebody leanings, but I also feel committed and excited to spend more time saying 'yes' to invitations that involve getting out and engaging with this city where we chose to live.

🧁 For my birthday, I will take myself out on a tour of one of my favorite city neighborhoods, sipping matcha and listening for the pull to dip into whatever stationery shops, bookstores, and secondhand boutiques catch my eye.

02
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I will enjoy taking pride in my home and opening it up to the people I love.

After two years of visioning and budgeting, we finally got a proper guest room set up—which means we can finally host friends who want to come down for a visit and stay the night.

This feels like such a tangible way to invite love in, and an unexpected side effect of this project has been a noticeable boost of pride in our home. I love this space, I love what we've done with it, and I'm excited to keep making slow-and-steady progress in the years to come and continue turning it into a space where we love spending time—with our people, each other, and ourselves.

🧁 For my birthday, we will host friends, both local and out-of-town, for and afternoon of backyard grilling.

03
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I will spend energy tending to IRL friendships.

Related, but slightly different from the point above: in addition to hosting our DC friends (and friends from other parts of the country!) who want to come visit, I've been thinking a lot lately about building local community: something I finally feel like, two years after moving, I have the capacity to start doing more in earnest.

I feel so grateful to have sweet neighbors and a handful of local friends in Richmond, and this feels like the year I want to really focus on expanding that circle of in-person connections. (I still have it on my list to reach back out to a local friend-of-a-friend I met through a co-working group—sharing here for accountability!)

🧁 For my birthday, I will have friends over and relish the time I get to spend with them.

04
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I will nourish myself with food that feels good.

I won't pretend this is profound, but especially as I get older I notice how my day is impacted when I eat meals that feels good in my body.

To be clear, 'food that feels good' doesn't look like any one thing, nor am I a believer in ascribing moral value to food. (Shout out to Maintenance Phase and specifically to Aubrey Gordon for teaching me SO FREAKIN MUCH in the last few years about diet culture and fat phobia and all the deeply-fucked-up ways we're encouraged to relate to both food and our bodies.)

And . . . for me personally, I know I tend to feel radically better when my midday meal is veggie-heavy and tastes delicious.

I’ve also learned that when I can make it happen, one of the best gifts I can give my future self is to spend the weekend doing a little planning and prep to make delivering on the promise of a nourishing, delicious lunch as quick and easy as possible during the week.

🧁 For my birthday, I will pick myself up a Big Salad™ at a local spot I've been wanting to try.

05
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I will show up for my creativity in community with other writers.

One of the biggest gifts from the past year has been not only deepening my commitment to my creative practices, but also finding myself in a rich and wonderful community of other writers.

I still don't know exactly what compelled me to pull the trigger and join Sustenance last fall, but here's what I do know: the returns on that investment have been greater and more life-altering than I could have imagined at the time. As I said in a community thread that Joy posted inside Sustenance earlier this week, I feel like I've found my writerly home.

The shift from wallflower to active participant in that group has paid off in spades, and I have no plans to take my foot off the gas anytime soon.

🧁 For my birthday, I will attend a Generative Office Hours workshop inside Sustenance and enjoy being in community with other writers.

06
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I will eat cupcakes and they will be funfetti.

See also: refusing to ascribe moral value to food.

I have to say, there's something deeply satisfying about naming exactly what I want, placing the order myself, and not hemming or hawing about what it costs.

To elaborate slightly—and this might sound like a small thing—there's also something liberating about refusing to take other people's hypothetical flavor preferences into consideration when ordering my own birthday treats. A funfetti flavored mile marker on my years-long trek to leave people-pleasing in the dust.

🧁 For my birthday, I will pick up a dozen funfetti cupcakes. When the time comes to eat mine, I will savor every last crumb.