The Ultimate Birthday Gift

I haven't met anyone yet who each year says "Yea I'm turning the age I should be turning. Just like last year, my life events, finances, and relationships are exactly where they should be according to how many years it's been since I popped out."

I can already tell you why I haven't met that person. They don't exist. All those things mentioned are social constructs built around you. They vary depending on the culture you come from, the culture you presently live in, and the culture you see yourself being a part of in the future.

The Law 

Here we are now left with the law in the society we live in. --> America

18- I was finally able to sign all my own documents, have an un-restricted drivers license, and vote. (No more forging mom's signature :-0 )

21- I was finally able to buy my own alcohol and stop sneaking into bars and clubs by using a fake french accent and pretending I was foreign. (Je m'appelle Alissa. Je ne parle pas anglais)

25- I now have less fees for renting a car. (Maybe I'll own one by the time I'm 30)

But that doesn't seem right to leave the fate of a birthday up to the law it co-insides with. At 25 I've reached one of my last known restrictions. I thought about the past years and what made them special. Each birthday has been so different;I've been sick in the past, in another country, and now on a different coast than all of my family. That being said, I never felt lacking or that I missed out when the variables of life changed. I've always felt they were good, life was good.

"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.Knowledge and love are both indefinitely extensible; therefore, however good a life may be, a better life can be imagined. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life." 

- Bertrand Russell 

Let the love in

So everyday and absolutely every year we learn things, we acquire a new understanding, and become all the wiser for it (hopefully). What has made my birthdays so special has not been the laws that I've reached or the new knowledge I've gained. It has been the love I let in, no matter how far, how sick, or how different things seemed to be, that has made each year as full as the last. 

What does it mean to let the love in? It means a few things but firstly, people give love all the time around you but its easy to dismiss because of pride, prejudice, or your own insecurity. We've built up walls and behaviors that make showing human-to-human love seem weird or off. Letting the love in with people is literal. Accept the kindness and the words on your birthday. Be genuine and gracious.

The second component is letting the love in, from you own self. What do you love? What makes you feel alive? Let it in. Embrace it. I made my own breakfast, listened to some Billie Holiday and Louis, and I wrote. It's easy to forget what makes you tick throughout the year because such is life. Letting your love of pleasures and activities is another way to fill you up, even for just that one day a year.

My trusted and true Billie Holiday poster.

The ultimate birthday gift

"Let the love in" I reminded myself the night before my birthday. It was easy to feel a little homesick and that something was missing. I let that moment have it's time before letting the love in from all those who reached out-- which quickly filled any void I felt before. Then I let the love in from myself. I wrote, I cooked and enjoyed my favorite music. I found solace in remembering that the amount of love I let in helps deepen the capacity for the love I let out or give.

Letting the love in is the ultimate birthday gift because it is a multiplier of all things. It re-energizes your soul, the soul of others, and if you truly let it in, it becomes the gift that keeps on giving.

It won't matter where you are or who you are with. Those things will become supplemental to your birthday if you can practice letting the love in.

Youth isn't wasted on the young.

A youthful Alissa at Christmas. 

Youth isn't wasted on the young, it is left behind by the old; waiting to be picked up, brushed off, and tuned up again like that old guitar from college in your attic.

Characters of the World

In the last five or six years, during my travel and adventures, I encountered dozens upon dozens of what I call characters of the world. I wish I had carried around a recorder to capture some of the insights and stories of those I met along the way. Although I can't recount every detail or journey I came upon, I still have managed to retain a great deal of the knowledge and wisdom bestowed on me by those fellow characters of the world.

A Man at the Airport

One of the more memorable conversations I had was with a man I met a few years ago at Heathrow airport in London. I was waiting for my departing flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. After brief small talk of “Hi, where are you from?” “I wish airport lounge chairs were more comfortable”, he started telling me some of his regrets. After hearing about how he wished he traveled more, worked less, and ate more vegetables, he paused and looked on for a moment. He then turned to me and said with an undertone of bitterness, “I wish I could go back and change a few things. It’s a shame but Oscar was right, youth is wasted on the young.” I admittedly took this as an insult at first, primarily because I scoffed at the idea that 22 was young.

Am I wasting Youth?

Didn’t he know that I was an adult? I had been legal to drink in the USA for over a year so that meant my youth was already on the decline. What was left after turning 21 other than car rentals at 25 and becoming a member of AARP at 50? I quickly shook the notion that this was an insult and decided to sit with his statement as I waited for my flight. Youth. What was this youth he was referring to and how were “we” wasting it?

Carrying those words

Since that conversation, I have carried those words with me. In my decision-making processes in life, adventure, and love I’ve said to myself “They say youth is wasted on the young, Well, I am young and I don’t want to waste it.”

I write today to tell you that youth is not wasted on the young, because contrary to popular belief, youth holds NO expiration date. It is a constant presence that only gets ignored as an individual adheres to more of the social constructs of becoming an “adult”. Youth is a mindset that allows you to question, seek, and find yourself, over and over again. It’s what was with you as you navigated the hallways of high school freshman year. Youth carried you through high school as you embarked on explorations and experimental phases with friends, family, and your first tastes of figuring-out-life. Youth brought you through these times and carried you into the next chapter of your life. You left this youth upon your proverbial exit from childhood to maturity. Luckily, unlike a cellphone on the subway or $20 dollar bill dropped on the street, youth cannot be taken. It is waiting there for you to come back and carry it with you.

He was Wrong

 If I ever got to see that man from the airport again, I would tell him with conviction and certainty that he was wrong in the rightest way. One of the most frustrating and satisfying feelings is thinking you lost something only to discover it was right under your nose the whole time. Even if he spent the last 40 years yearning for a feeling and sense of self that he always had the ability to uncover, can’t we all take a little solace in the fact that it was never out of his reach?

Take more Action

Don’t be that man at the airport with the undertone of bitterness. Take more action, invoke more sense of self to see that youth is a state of being that just needs your consent in order to be felt. Youth is wasted on anyone, any age that chooses to let it go. 

Like that guitar in the attic from college, go pick it up, brush it off, tune it up, and play the tunes that make you feel alive. 

Youth never leaves You

Don't let your youth collect dust. Frank found someone, so you go out and find something that makes you feel young again. And remember that it was never gone, it's right where you left it.