Hi Readers, it’s Co-editor Gail!
My birthday is March 10th. Last year to celebrate I went out to dinner with my family at Chili’s. We shared tortilla chips and salsa, I had a delicious juicy cheeseburger and a big fruity margarita and our waiter was kind and attentive. It was a nice evening out with the people I love and the wind in my hair.
Two days later, everything shut down due to the pandemic and I would not even leave my home again for several months.
Last year I was lucky and just missed it by a hair. This year however, I’m not so fortunate.
My 25th birthday will be a quarantine birthday.
While not the best first step forward into my quarter-life, I really want to make the most of it (with it hopefully being my only birthday under such circumstances).
So, how do I prepare for a birthday indoors?
Well I guess I have to think about what I really want and keep it simple.
So what do I want? Well I guess I can narrow it down to a few basics that will make the day feel special despite the situation.
I want:
- A nice meal that is out of the ordinary from our usual takeout repertoire.
- Just one tasty alcoholic beverage of some kind.
- A cake of a flavor of my choosing.
These seem like three good and achievable goals I will be able to meet.
But can’t be all I want to do right? Don’t I want some kind of activity to spend my time doing during the day/in the evening?
Well yes, but what can I do stuck indoors that will be different from any other day?
I could:
- Watch a movie I have never seen before.
- Throw myself a little dance party to my favorite jams.
- Play some video games I haven’t touched in a while.
Once again, three things I totally can and probably will do in some fashion on that day.
These small lists are really the best I can hope for this year and while a little disappointing, it is okay.
This past year has taught us all to deal with disappointment.
I’d like to think that I have always been a person who generally has an optimistic heart and approach to life. Events in these past few years have really shaken me and made me question if that’s still who I am. Everything seemed to culminate in this “new normal” we are all still striving for survival through.
But now as we approach an official full year of this pandemic, I’m seeing how even though sometimes it may feel that way, I have not aged into a negative skeptic or doom and gloom pessimist, but into someone who now has a greater understanding of the uphill battle that positive progressive change can be and almost always is.
I want to celebrate that growth while reveling in the aggravating absurdity through which said celebration must take place.
This is sure to be a milestone birthday that I will never forget no matter how small and closed in it will be.
It’s my party, and I’ll cry if I want to.
And quarantine cause I have to.
*P.S. Stay tuned for an update post on how to get tickets for the production of Spoon River Anthology I talked about in my last blog.*
Gail Bello is a poet and playwright from Waltham, Massachusetts. She graduated in 2019 with a BFA in Creative Writing and a minor in Theatre from The University of Maine at Farmington. Find her previous publications at https://thaumaturgedramaturge.wordpress.com and follow her on Twitter @AquajadeGail