On Heartache, Change (or lack thereof), and Turning 30

Essay

Jul 15

I hate my birthday. It’s a feeling all too common, even immortalized in 1963 when Lesley Gore sang, "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to."

I call the first week of July my Scheduled Depression Episode as if my brain pencils it in on a calendar without consulting me. I ride it out, let the week reach a crescendo on the eighth, and then try to make peace with another year gone.

"How was your birthday?!" My coworker asked me as I got into work at my part-time retail job on the ninth, the second day of my 31st year.

"Oh, you know, not too bad. Survived. Baked, ate Mexican food in yoga pants, and went nuclear on a man."

She turned to me and said, "That's awesome," with no further follow-up questions.

Not from a lack of interest, I'm sure, but the equal parts of not wanting to pry into the life of someone you only started working with three months ago and the knowing of the pure catharsis of losing your shit on some guy.

"I always cry on my birthday," she told me.

"Oh, I'm a notorious birthday crier," I said. "What cues the tears for you?"

"I just really can't deal with the idea of getting older. But then I get over it. Until next year, of course. What about you?"

"For me, it's always about how another year has passed and I feel like I'm in the same exact place I was the year before."

At least, that's how it's been for about the last eight years.

A Brief History of Birthdays

Growing up, I lived for my birthday. Planned my childhood parties out months in advance, scheming ideas about theme, the guest list, and the cake I wanted. I eagerly awaited the arrival of my cards in the mail and displayed them like a celebratory gallery wall.

I still enjoyed it throughout my teenage years, chomping at the bit to get older, feel more like a person, and rid myself of my pubescent awkwardness that came with being a late bloomer.

That all changed at 19 when my brain betrayed me, and led me down a nearly decade-long path of emotional instability, a semi-permanent lethargy, and little will to keep going, in every sense.

My 20s, for the lack of a better descriptor, were a shit show. Over the years, I had periods of being "okay," but I was never fully recovered, so when anything difficult came my way, I lacked the mental fortitude to deal with it in a healthy way. I adopted shutting down as my primary coping technique and became an expert at it.

When COVID hit, and the world went on pause, not much changed for me. I had already retreated to my bedroom by the end of 2019—no degree, no job, no capacity for change. Only surviving day by day. Correction: minute by minute. For the next four birthdays, I grew another year older, still living in the house I grew up in, wondering if I should just resign myself to the way things were.

"If I wake up still living in my childhood bedroom on my 30th birthday… I just don't know if I could psychologically stand that," I admitted to my friends, who all uniquely understood (as well as one could) my issues and the inner workings of my mind, most of us having known each other for at least half our lives.

However, at the end of last year, the vision for this year was different, and I saw further ahead than ever before. 2024 left, and I entered 2025 with a degree (although no job prospects in sight) and mental stability I worked my ass off for. The scale at which I could plan ahead grew to a few months. I could foresee a career, the loose logistics of moving and finding an apartment, independence, and small glimpses of a vibrant life I never managed to build in my 20s.

But what would life be without some sort of new complicated interruption? A wrench in the working plans, spectacularly beautiful yet devastating.

Fast and Messy

I met someone this year and felt a cosmic click I had never experienced before, one I know he felt too.

When I told my friends, they said, "I've never heard you talk about someone like this."

It's true, because I hadn't.

I meticulously think through my actions (most of the time), second-guess every decision, and spend too much time dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. But this year, I did something as foreign as the feeling he elicited in me—I listened to my gut, decided to be bold without hesitation, and chose to live in the moment.

If I were to tell the whole story of us with every detail, we'd be here for thousands upon thousands of words. Not that those words don't exist, but here is what is important for now: A cross-country whirlwind romance ensued that went from 0 to 90 to a fiery explosion in just two short months. Since he ended it in March, I've been dealing with the near-constant ache in my chest from an absence I didn't see coming.

I cried. I drank. I bitched. I wrote. I wrote a lot. Hell, I'm still writing. I'm writing more now than I ever have in my life, piecing together the narrative of what happened, but more importantly, what happened afterward. The emotional fallout, the coping mechanisms, the endless dates and nights out, fueled by the need to do things for the literal plot I was writing.

"You're seeing him again? You said you didn't like him," my friends would ask as I headed out on yet another date.

I'd shrug. "It's good plot fodder. I don't know what else to tell you."

An Abattoir of Plans

When we were together, we'd lie lazily on the couch or in bed and talk about the absurdity of the situation we had found ourselves in. He routinely freaked me out by mentioning the future.

He painted a picture for me—his eye seeing further out than mine. He could see our lives intertwining, and us finding a location where we could both live, ending our long-distance. His confidence in our ability to adapt to changing plans began to give me the confidence that we could make this unexpected happenstance work.

Despite my still lingering trepidation, I gave in and daydreamed with him about the summer like children ready for the school year to end, consumed by romanticized ideas about their "best summer ever."

We spoke of going to Florida in June, where my parents have a condo. We fantasized about floating in the bathwater warmth of the ocean, having already spent time there together in the unusual, bitter cold of January.

We spoke of July.

I spend every July 3rd on the beach near the childhood home of Nikki, my best friend of 25 years. Our friends have kept the tradition since high school, when excitement was walking the beach with boys and an illicit six-pack of Twisted Tea, surrounded by drunk strangers setting off amateur fireworks up and down the shoreline. It wasn't difficult to picture him with us this year or to envision how he'd mesh into our dynamic.

He told me his family was gathering in Massachusetts for the Fourth. Told me how much his mom would love me.

That could be a reality: the third with my friends, the Fourth with his family.

"It will be six months for us then, and your birthday. Lots to celebrate," he said.

"Let's just see where this goes first before jumping quite so far ahead," became my refrain when he made declarations of the sort, although my need for self-preservation was crumbling.

"Okay," he'd say. "We can do that."

“He became a framework, giving me the ability to see further ahead than ever before.”

Somewhere along the way—I still can't pinpoint where, despite my countless hours spent combing through every moment—I started to believe it too. He became a framework, giving me the ability to see further ahead than ever before. I saw a future where he laid the foundation and filled it with all the trappings of a good life.

Then overnight, he just took it all away with unsatisfactory explanations of uncertainties and empty platitudes about "right person, wrong time." Leaving me here, now in July, without him and that future he convinced me could be real.

Afterward, no apology, no regret, just silence.

Disappointment Thrives on Hope

When July hit, along with my depression, I wondered if he was here after all, maybe only miles away, and would say something. Anything. I had held out with a semblance of hope, but when my phone screen remained dark and absent of his name, I couldn't help but feel the heartache that still lived in my being.

On the third, he was not with me, but I saw him everywhere. He existed as an apparition I was haunted by, as if I had manifested his presence through intense wishful thinking. I imagined each interaction with my friends, picturing his amused expression as Nikki told him how her boyfriend was planning to propose on the beach that night, and how she knew every part of the plan. I saw him slinging his flannel over me as we ran back to the house during the torrential downpour, never making it to the beach. Together, we would have witnessed Andrew pulling Nikki out of the garage, into the rain, and dropping down on one knee.

I mourned the loss of him again and the way this month would have started if everything had panned out the way he described. I didn't know where to place my rage and profound grief that filled the space where he yanked away beautiful plans with seemingly little thought.

I'm self-aware enough to see how this sounds from the outside. "Two months? How could someone you knew for two months affect you this much?"

And the truth is: I don't know. If I had a simple answer to that question, I could process the experience and move on, but my bewilderment has only exacerbated the spiraling. In trying to make sense of it, I've been left obsessing over every minute detail.

Aside from the intensity, it could be because it feels incomplete. Instead of naturally running its course like other relationships I've experienced, this one came to a grinding halt before it ever really began. Maybe the devastation comes from potential squandered and the illusion of a tomorrow.

Four Months and Fourteen Miles

At midnight on the seventh, I found out he was in Massachusetts in depressing, modern fashion: swiping through a dating app.

What was once, in March, a ritual with the purpose of finding halfway decent dates to offer distraction and mask my broken state for a couple of hours, had become a form of bleak entertainment. Weeding my way through the slim pickings of men made me nauseous then, but now I could laugh at the abysmal reality of dating again.

But then, only three swipes in, and there he was. Same photos. Same crooked, boyish smile I had memorized in winter. He was just 14 miles away, and I felt sick.

I called my friend Katie, whom I lived with in our early 20s, bonding over bad fan fiction and romantic misfortunes.

"Hi," I said when she picked up. "I'm about to beat the same dead horse again. At this point, it's rotting in the barn."

She laughed and quipped, "I mean… the horse is already dead. I don't think it cares. Have at it.”

Although his dating app presence sent a pang of hurt into my stomach, I was more upset that he was here, just a half hour away, and I hadn't received a single word.

The next day, after sleeping only a few short hours, my brain racing until 6 am, I knew I couldn't resist texting him. So that night, on my parents’ back deck, I sat in front of a Diet Coke with a heavy pour of vodka in it and typed.

We exchanged a few messages, and he correctly guessed that I saw him on an app. He wished me a happy early birthday. I didn't acknowledge it. I asked why he didn’t reach out, and he answered that he wasn't sure if it would be appropriate.

Did that mean he wanted to? Thought about it? Thought about me?

Somehow, hope still managed to creep in. Brutally unfounded hope. But I realized that every impulse he had—pursuing me, being with me, and eventually cutting off contact with me—he acted upon.

At the time, he did not consider the consequences or what would be deemed “appropriate," so why would he now?

I asked, "What do you mean by appropriate?" No response.

I eventually crawled into bed, too distracted to think about my worst fear, even though it was about to happen. The sun would rise, and I would open my eyes in my childhood bedroom at age 30.

Cupcakes and Closure (Whatever that Means)

I woke up on my birthday with no reply waiting for me, but with a clear mind. I spent the day in the kitchen baking cupcakes, and I crafted what I actually wanted to say to him in between weighing flour and dumping a whole container of rainbow sprinkles into the batter.

Over and over, my friends, advice from the Internet, even the rational part of my brain said, "Don't say anything. Don't contact him. Let him feel your absence. They always come back."

But I already opened Pandora's Box by hitting send the night before. I had spent months sitting with the agony caused by him while he got to bury his guilt along with whatever feelings he had for me. I would not allow him to retreat under the blanket of out of sight, out of mind. If he wasn't going to clarify what appropriate meant, I certainly could.

It was my birthday, and I was going nuclear.

Also, not really sure you're one to judge on what's "appropriate" considering you [redacted] then broke up with me in a shitty text 48 hours later and never spoke to me again. So, yeah, it was a little triggering to see your face pop up. The least you could have done was at some point reach out and apologize for everything you did

What I've decided to redact is an explicit, vulnerable act that I am not ashamed of, but won't name here. If he chose ambiguity in his reply, ignoring the burden of the already constant confusion and questioning I had endured for the last four months, I would provide him with a visceral image to illustrate the cruelty of his actions. Shove it right in front of his face. Only fair considering the way the last day we saw each other circled through my mind regularly, as I tried to find the warning signals amongst what I now know was feigned intimacy and artificial trust.

I received my reply a half hour later.

He said he was sorry for handling it poorly, that he got scared when things were getting serious, and that I deserved better.

There it was, right in front of my eyes for the first time. The word "sorry." But it just made me angry. How it arrived made me angry. A half-assed, late apology given only after I coaxed it out of him. A declaration that the serious path we were heading down was too much for him, despite doing the leading.

You clearly have no idea how it feels to be so cruelly discarded, I fired back.

My phone remained quiet after that. He unknowingly had an eight-hour window before I gave him my version of cruelty.

I had imagined this moment so many times over the past four months. Four months that seemed to drag on for ages and pass by in a blink. Four months of a million different scenarios, conversations, outlooks, opinions, and speeches. Fantasies of him crawling back and unrealistic happy endings. Refusing to see him. Seeing him and saying how much I missed him. Seeing him and telling him to go fuck himself. "I hate you." "I love you." "Frankly, I don't think about you at all."

If this day were to come, I had hoped it would happen in person, wanting the dramatic effect for the story, and for it to be something he couldn't escape from. Still, the moment was here. How could I synthesize all my feelings and racing thoughts into a concise message that would leave him with the sting of guilt and a drop of my pain?

It took me five minutes to find the right words, omit the ones that mattered less, and form the phrases I hope gut-punched him.

It’s My Party and I’ll Do What I Want To

The day was ending, and his time was up. Pasting from my notes app with no advice from my council of friends, I hit send.

The storm rolling in rumbled over the house, and I knew I had to move fast if I wanted my special occasion birthday cigarette before I shoved the pack of Marlboro Golds back into my drawer and waited a considerable amount of time before the next one.

I called Nikki from the deck.

She picked up with the obligatory sing-songy "Happy birthday!" Followed by an "Okay, spill."

"I texted him," I admitted, fumbling with the red plastic lighter.

"Well, obviously. How could I expect you not to?" I could practically hear the eye roll over the phone.

I was shocked. "Really? I thought you were gonna yell at me."

"I still might. Depends on what you said."

I took the first drag of the cigarette, rejoicing in the instant nicotine buzz. Then, I gave her the rundown of the previous night's events, along with the messages I had sent earlier that day. And his apology—if you can even call it that.

"He's unbelievable," she scoffed.

"There's one more message."

"Oh no."

"He didn't respond, so I just decided to say almost everything I've wanted to."

I refused to hold back. I called him a coward, a user, and said that it’s clear he never gave a flying fuck about me. Told him that I didn't accept his limp-dicked apology. Said that I know for him, I was only something to play with for a little while before I stopped being so shiny and new, although I still go back and forth on whether I believe that’s true.

"…God help the next girl you decide to victimize," I read to Nikki. "That's the last thing I wrote, and then I blocked. I don't care to know if he had anything to say after that."

Her voice boomed through the phone. "That's amazing! I thought you were going to say that you slept with him!"

"What? No!" I screamed before taking another drag of my cigarette. "Pretty sure I'd break down and sob if I somehow got to that point."

"This is good," she said. "You ended it on your terms this time."

"I guess I did."

On Turning 30

“Be no man’s peace, only your own.”

Despite all the advice I didn't take and the warnings I didn't heed, I knew what I did was right for me because of the relief that rushed into my veins the moment I sent those final texts and hit block. What I didn't expect was that the people who love me the most would feel the catharsis too. After all, they have had to witness my agony for months. It's only natural.

Sitting outside, lightning and thunder overhead, the sky absent of rain, I had a realization.

It turns out birthdays are good for something. They're good for drinking several vodka-laced Diet Cokes, smoking a couple of cigarettes, sending texts to a man who hurt you with specific, acute details as to how he did so, and making the conscious choice to let yourself be free. Birthdays are good for doing whatever the fuck you want. Whatever the fuck you think is best for you. And the thing about the things you think are best for you, especially at 30, is that they probably are.

So, say the things you've held back. Don't grant forgiveness if you don't want to or if it hasn't been earned. Be no man's peace, only your own. Accept that you will still feel grief from time to time. Cry if you have the urge to do so, and let it soothe you. Participate in your old vices, knowing they're rarities, not constants. Stay up late and eat all the glorious baked goods you made without guilt. Let time do its job, moving you in the right direction and expanding your ability to plan, but only on your own timeline. Be okay with the alcohol induced headache waiting for you in the morning, and start anew.