Jonesing
It’s my 45th birthday, and I have my head in a woman’s crotch.
I believe birthdays to be hugely important. I try to make as big a deal out of my friends’ birthdays as possible. On my birthdays, I try to treat myself like a queen. I don’t work. I eat everything. I cancel all meetings and obligations. I am nice to myself in ways that I would never dare be the 364 other days of the year, while realizing that’s something I really should change.
It’s my 45th birthday, and I am in tears.
Not hashtag-blessed tears, but tears of self-pity. 5-year old-style tears. I’m sure this comes as no surprise to you, for I am nothing if not a tiny bit emotional, and there’s no better day to be emotional than :
a) a day for which you’ve raised your expectations higher than the breathable atmosphere
b) the day you’re turning forty fucking five
c) the day after you’ve had an argument with your Dad, which was really hard and upsetting, and
d) the day on which you have PMS combined with perimenopause, like some kind of middle finger from the gods of femaledom.
The argument sucked. It hoovered up all my hope for happiness in life in the world and made me decide—again, this will come as a shock—that I should leave Turkiye. I was already filled with enough existentialism to fill a basement bookstore, because I’m turning 45 and what do I have to show for myself? Where are the loving partner and child? Barring that, where is the warm, loving community of like-minded friends I was supposed to have by now? Am I ever going to find love again? (Obvious answer: no.)
I know how Bridget Jones this sounds. And for the record, I love Bridget Jones. But today, it’s embarrassing. I know what a privilege it is to turn 45. That one day soon 45 will seem so young. That to many people reading this, it already does.
I don’t care. I am freaking out. There is so much gravity in my face all of a sudden. I spent an hour crying yesterday, hiding under the covers, which is so shameful I can’t believe I’m admitting it.
It’s my 45th birthday, and I am sitting on a beach in front of the Aegean Sea.
The sun is shining. The waves are sloshing. The sand is warm. My dog is cuddled up as close to me as he could get without climbing onto my head.
This is what’s happening. Nothing else. Put everything else down. Be here now.
The existential angst lifts.
Django and I go for breakfast. I order French toast.
It’s not every day you turn 45.
And then, I head to the hammam.
That’s a traditional Turkish bath, which always feels to me like a human car wash. You go into a sauna until your face fries off, and then into a steam room until the rest of your body melts from your bones. Then you lie down on a slab of marble, and someone scrubs your skin within an inch of your life, satisfyingly removing dead cells which clump into little grey skin rollies. Finally they douse you with cold water, before foaming up a giant balloon sponge with soap, slathering you with it and hurling even more cold water over you.
If you’ve opted for a massage, which I did, you follow yet another person to a room upstairs, wobbly-kneed. This person, who in my case is 4 and a half feet tall with flaming red hair that comes out like a spout from the top of her head, commands you to take off your bikini top. She massages you straight to heaven, in ways that would have people arrested if they were to do so in Canada.
This is the woman in whose crotch I find my head.
She has climbed onto the massage table and is beating my back up and down. She kneads all the way down my arm, to my fingers, and just for a second she holds my hand, tenderly. This feeling is so familiar and unfamiliar that yet again, I start sobbing—silently—and continue as she does the same with the other hand. When was the last time someone held my hand? Will it ever happen again? I manage to calm down as she turns my spine into mush. Then she sits me upright and lovingly wraps a Turkish towel around my chest, tucking it in so gently, the way I wish my mother would. I choke back another sob, and stagger downstairs to get dressed.
It’s my 45th birthday, and I have informed my dad that I want to buy a camper van and drive it to Italy.
We’re out at dinner. We have talked out our issue from yesterday. I can tell he felt bad, and the thing with only having a relationship with one parent is it’s a lot harder to be angry at them. Also, it’s my birthday. I don’t feel like arguing. I feel like eating several thousand calories.
My dad’s widen as I tell him of my plan.
“N—” he says.
“Wh…”
He lets out a huge sigh and rolls his eyes.
I laugh.
We’ve had so many versions of this conversation. When I was 16 told him I was going to Switzerland for 3 months. When I was 36 and told him I was going to Uganda. During the pandemic, when I told him I’d Youtubed a way to fit a mattress in my VW Golf, and decided I was going to camp my way across Canada .
“Are you crazy? You’re going to sleep in your car? By yourself? In the wilderness? With… not even a real dog?”
I never told Django about that last bit.
While my dad is—ahem—“old-fashioned” in many ways when it comes to women, he raised me to be this way. I don’t know if it was his methodology for trying to keep me safe or for making sure I earned a decent living, but I was schooled, over and over again through the years, that I could do anything a boy could do. He got me riding horses. Playing the electric bass. He made sure I never relied on a guy to pay for anything. He took me to see adventure movies every Sunday, in which people (dudes) traveled around to ancient and mysterious places and learned about sacred teachings. Star Wars. Tintin. Dune. And my #1 hero: Indiana Jones. That was the life I wanted.
“This is your fault, you know,” I inform my dad.
“I know,” he sighs. “But it’s still not a good idea.”
We change the subject, and order dessert.
It’s my 45th birthday, and a monumental thunderstorm has hit Fethiye.
It started before I leave the house for dinner with my dad. Django was beside himself with terror, his teeth chattering so hard that my body shook when I put my arms around him. My terrace was covered in water and miniature golf balls of hail, so that my feet nearly shoot out from under me.
When we got to the restaurant we sat facing the bay, watching the sky turn to black and lightening shoot into the sea, thunder crashing all around us. But the thunder faded out, and the rain stopped. By the time the day was over, Fethiye had returned to its calm, soothing self. Waves sloshing, seagulls chirping.
As if none of it had ever happened.
Hi. I just subscribed which was a learning experience for me. I enjoyed Big Birthday. I remember being your age and starting a new job and feeling very over the hill. Little did I realize that 45 is a great age to be. Still young! Travelling in your own little “house” sounds like a great idea. Stay safe. Susan
I finally am a founding member of something I believe in! That's my birthday gift to me as I am about to turn 65! I didn't even know that was possible. I am seeing life and the world through you and Django...what a gift that is for this almost 65 year old!