Eat the sad, gray cupcake

An honest birthday acknowledgement for the years that just aren't it 🎂

Today is my birthday! Join me in celebrating by subscribing, upgrading your subscription, or sending this Substack to a friend. Thanks for being here ✨

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Today I am 34.

I'm part of the unlucky crew whose 30th birthdays landed smack dab in Pandemic Season 1. I had just broken up with my boyfriend and was a few weeks into near complete solitude. My friends and I celebrated this milestone birthday spaced out on the back deck of my apartment that no longer exists. When the final friend left, I brought in the dishes and bawled.

Since then, each birthday seems to alternate between a solid celebration and an all-out bawl fest. If history is to repeat itself, this is scheduled to be a cry sesh kind of year—and reader, I can confirm.

Birthdays are complicated. They naturally lend themselves to reflection—taking stock of what has changed, what hasn't changed, and how satisfied you are with what currently is.

A year ago, when I turned 33, that reflection felt like a gasping exhalation of the air I had been holding during my marathon swim in the rolling sea of cancer, followed by the first normal breath I had taken in ages.

I was a weary woman crawling home from a war I never agreed to be drafted for and suddenly greeted by joys bigger than I could have predicted. It was startling and novel. Was it safe to feel this joy? I was grateful for this soft, magical return after a year of anything but—even though I knew the aftermath would eventually find its way to me.

I was right. ​​Like an index finger pressed firmly into my bruised soul, that aftermath did, in fact, find its way to me. And that’s where I find myself today.

It's been a very challenging year of recovery and healing. And while I am so proud of so many things and so grateful for what has changed in my life, the lead-up to this birthday has felt like a harsh, blinding spotlight on what still isn't there yet.

I didn't go looking for this gaping hole—in fact, I've been focusing intently on the connections and opportunities in front of me to the point where I actually felt a shift—but I fell right into it unexpectedly, pinpoint pricks of hidden expectations and unrequited dreams coming from every angle.

It’s like having a closet full of beautiful, treasured clothes and nothing to wear—when no combination of plans and people and possibilities adds up to the feeling I want to have or the person I want to be right now. I’ve emotionally ransacked my room, combed through every drawer, tried on every gratitude that was remotely genuine, but still…I am missing the belt, the pair of shoes, the red lipstick to bring it all together, to feel…right.

The invitation this birthday—and really this season of life—is asking of me is one of radical acceptance. And I gotta be honest. I’m pretty freaking resentful of that, given how much I’ve already had to raDIcalLy ACcepT. And therein lies the illusion of recovery and healing: it continues, long after you think it’s over.

But if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that if I want to stop suffering, I have to stop resisting the pain of acceptance. Of surrender. And lean into the suck. Let it be shitty. Let it be not quite “right.”

Or as my friend Michelle perfectly put it the other day: eat the sad, gray cupcake.

I’m tired of eating sad, gray cupcakes. But they taste a little bit better when adorned with a flag that says, “I didn’t want it to be like this!”

And magically, like clockwork, when we acknowledge our rage and disappointment and upset and choose to let that be okay for now, it does get a little better. And we’re finally free to enjoy what is.

So with that 🎂🎉UPLIFTING BIRTHDAY MESSAGE🎂🎉, let’s move onto some highlights from the past year!

In my 34th year, I:

• Met one fifth of my favorite boyband of all time—and they released two songs after 20 years!

• Visited SIX different countries (England, Italy, Holland, France, Denmark, and a teeny tiny stop in Sweden) and two new-to-me cities (Charleston and Boston)

• Achieved NED status: No evidence of disease! 🙏🏻

• Launched my Substack and kept posting, even though I had/have no idea what I’m doing

• Took really good care of my body through numerous changes, symptoms, and surgery

• Lived my Regency dreams

• Processed and healed a LOTTTTTTTT

Outside of a very exciting season of travel last fall, I can’t say this was a particularly eventful year, but you know what? I’ll take it.

Whether you’ve been with me for years or you’re just joining me on this journey, thank you for being here—for being willing to lean into your discomfort, to say or do the hard thing, to feel both the depths of your pain and the height of your joy.

Meet here again this time next year? I’ll bring the cupcakes.