A Proactive Birthday List
Making a list to guide a day can make everything easier and is good self-care.
Thank you to everyone who read and commented last week. Your words and support took me by surprise. Today’s post is about living. It doesn’t mean I am not still in the middle of everything and trying to understand the contours and where I am now and how to even begin to hold things together, but there are birthdays in the next thirty days, two of which still happen.
A few weeks ago, I was thinking about my posts for the month of June. I was trying to put some groundwork in place so that while my mom visited (a summer trip to celebrate birthdays), I would be able to maintain my Sunday posts. I spend a lot of time on the various parts of each week’s set of Illustrated Life posts, and I knew that kind of time wouldn't be possible.
I don’t stockpile posts. I don’t write out into the future. I don’t have a drawer of posts ready to go in a pinch, in case the bottom falls out. Instead, I draw meaning from whatever connect-the-dots moments come into view in a week. But I did think ahead this year about how to juggle my weekly writing and the contours of June and the June birthdays.
I thought about resurfacing a few old posts that I know very few people saw. I still might do that in coming weeks, revisiting some concepts and points of perspective from my current vantage. (Right now, those old posts might feel a bit hollow, so I’m glad I hadn’t lined them up already.)
When I thought about these Sunday posts, I didn't realize everything would be different. I thought I was thinking ahead just to ensure I could spend quality time with my mom. I am still trying to do that.
This birthday still exists. This birthday is still happening, and it is still one to celebrate.
Thank you for being here.
Amy
“Wish on everything. Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And stars of course, first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth.” ― Francesca Lia Block
Marking Milestones
Five years ago, my mom was here for a milestone birthday, and as part of that, I had her make a list of that many things to do to mark the day, a thing for each year. It was a way to gamify the day. It was a way to structure the day. It was a way to approach the day with intention. It was a way to make it a day that felt special to her.
It was much harder than either of us realized to make that kind of list!
Even now, it doesn’t sound all that hard to me. 70 things to check off in a day. But it was really hard. Many of the things on the list were very simple.
Get dressed. Hug Amy. Wear my mother’s ring.
The list required granularity and specificity.
Because a number of the things on the list involved food or walking or logistics, we decided it was a list to be tackled over two or three days. That way she could fit in several treats, and we could think about doing several things that might not all fit in one day.
(Tip: Your birthday list shouldn’t be exhausting! Finding the balance between full and too much is important.)
We searched for the list this week. Our tools were different then. At first, it seemed like the list might be lost to time, but she found it. (I now log our “to-do” lists for her visits in Notion, but I wasn’t a Notion user yet in 2019.)
We laughed as she read the list out loud. There are a lot of things broken out into separate line items simply to make the number. It was funny, in so many ways, hearing now what she listed then. Eat Cheetos. But it was also fun to remember that we “did that” one year.
Five Years Later
This year, another milestone birthday. At a certain point, I think we view years that end in 5 as significant, too, not just the roundness of decades. 75 feels important.
I didn’t think we would do a full numbered list this year, but I anticipated some form of list year to mark her birthday. Maybe it sounds odd to the outsider. Maybe it sounds chaotic. Maybe it sounds exhausting. Maybe you don’t like to gamify things. Maybe you don’t want to “have” to do anything on your birthday.
Maybe you just want to go with the flow of the day.
We like having some sense of what we want to happen. Rather than just hoping the day is good and leaving it to chance (or leaving it to other people to manifest), articulating a few things that have meaning gives shape to the day.
People who have big parties or have others who make extravagant gestures for birthdays may not need to do a bunch of things to mark a day. I can’t offer those things, but I like to think there is something nice in the gift of time, in the willingness to witness, share, and shepherd a day that feels meaningful.
What that means differs for each of us.
I know what foods I’ve ordered or purchased every year over the last few years in the days before my birthday, simple things that I know help give contours to a day that feels like me.
I know what I probably would have had for dinner this year. I know where we might have gone, a decade ago when things were different.
One of the last days in the hospital, a list of food, meals, groceries was being prepared. “Did you know there is a maximum number of items you can have in your cart?” I kept trying to reign things in. “We can’t buy for all of those meals at once. We can’t fit all of that in the fridge. Let’s make a list. Let’s plan the first few days.”
After being in the hospital for more than four weeks, the desire to place that order, to cook, to be home, was palpable. It was imminent. When I left on Thursday night, it was with a reminder not to order the groceries until we were sure of the release date. I had food lined up for the first two or three days. There would be time. There was no need to overdo it.
We made a list of meals over days. I’m not sure what we would have done for the birthday itself. There is something on that day in my note just because we were letting the list roll across days. I’m sure Mom would have picked something specific, and we would have shuffled the list. Or maybe we would have gone out, but we hadn’t gone out to eat in a long time. If we had planned out just three more meals on the list, the one for my own day would have been there.
The Days Move On
It has been hard approaching the birthdays now. They’ve lost a bit of their joy, a bit of their spark. There is a sense of guilt in the celebration. I know that is at the core of the reluctance now to fully claim the birthday. Some of the things we might have done now feel out of place.
We are keenly aware that not everyone makes it even to 70.
We do still laugh and play games and alternately stare out the window and fret and cry and worry. This is an interstitial moment for me, a pause before everything begins to fall down. But time itself is still moving.
The birthday is, as I share this, today.
There isn’t a list of 75 things this year. But every day leading up to today, I’ve asked…. “What do you want to do?”
The things we do on a birthday don’t have to be big things. A list might include a shared game, time to read, time to sit at the ocean and knit, or time to take a walk. It might include a selfie, a specific food, a phone call, or a sunset. Maybe it includes visiting a favorite spot. Maybe it includes trying or starting something new.
I know that a list of even four or five things is plenty. What matters is that they are of the person’s choosing. We all value different things and have different requirements for processing and marking our birthdays. What I think is important is being reflective and honest about what those things are. Don’t leave it to chance. Don’t wait and end up disappointed or hurt that those around you are not psychic.
Episode 364 (from 2019)
Back in 2019, I recorded Episode 364 of the Creativity Matters Podcast about that birthday list. The list was such a good experience, overall, and when I listened back to part of that show recently, it felt solid enough to carry today's letter.
I hope you might enjoy listening to the old show and thinking about your next birthday. Finding ways to make our days what we need and to be proactive in our self care is so important. A simple birthday list of even a handful of things can make a difference.
(Note: This old show has other things in it, too. It was a “then” moment. It was also a show setting the groundwork for the year-long 50 Before 50 list I started that summer.)
Rainbow Hair
Rainbow hair has so often been a June topic on the podcast. Here at Illustrated Life, I wrote about rainbow hair last year and recreated an old image, one that I hold really close to my heart. (No need to read the old post. Here is the 2007 image next to a digital recreation shortly after I got my first iPad in 2023. With 100 days of daily diary comic affirmations now in hand, I’m sure I would approach this with more skill now.)
Rainbow hair is, really, a “next-week” conversation, but the Index-Card-a-Day Challenge is underway, and I went with rainbow hair this year.
The challenge started June 1. I’m caught up, but, honestly, I’m not sure if I will continue. I know I can stop this year without feeling bad. Or I could keep going and prove to myself that I can, but I’m not sure that matters. I’m not sure most things matter right now. I do know that every morning, I have a few minutes alone, and I’ve started countless notes, tracking memories and tasks and details and things that outline this process, this stillness, this void. I am reaching. Those minutes of writing each day are so important to me.
(My habits are strong. I do have balance in this way.)
Here’s a look at a few of the rainbow hair pieces from the first two weeks. These are all on index cards, which is the nature of the ICAD challenge. These are all simple pieces, portraits drawn loosely, directly in colored pencil, which invites some haloing, and then inked.
Weekly Bits and Pieces
Made It?
Thank you for reading.
I appreciate all of the kind words this week. I was unprepared for your kindness, truly. Thank you.
I’ve been contemplating books and book lists and lots of different kinds of lists. I’m sure some of things will filter through the posts in coming days and weeks.
Feel free to comment on connections and overlaps, or jump in with any of these:
A recommendation for a “beautiful” book (beautiful in terms of prose and insight) — memoir, fiction, or non-fiction
A word you think of when you think of reading Illustrated Life over the year
One thing you find special to do on your birthday, or something simple from years past that stands out
Have a favorite, easy olive oil cake recipe? (Bonus if it’s lemon.)
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my endless scrolling these past 3 years of living-in-a fog has scrambled my brain enough to make reading a book a rarity. i have been an avid reader since childhood, and i am determined to unscramble and walk out of the mist. my book recommendation is M Train by Patti Smith. have you read it? i found it a beautiful memoir, perhaps suggested before. happy birthdays to 3, two for cake.
Two beautiful book recommendations from me that have offered me food for thought and comfort over the years - Outrageous Openness (Tosha Silver) and Desiderata (Max Ehrmann). I enjoyed reading about your birthday list. I like to take the day off from work on my birthday and try to do something physical that matches my age in minutes, like a walk :-)