DON'T TELL ME WHAT IT IS

When I was six years old, I had a birthday party after school. My mother hung a piñata from her condo balcony, and we all took turns beating it until it exploded across the driveway. Chiclets, Mars Bars, and tootsie rolls flew everywhere while a clown performed, and my mom sipped Coors Light in the corner. I sat in the grass, next to the driveway, ripping through a pile of presents as the festivities raged around me.

Later that night, I was overcome with this intense sense of disappointment and loneliness. Not because I didn’t get what I wanted, but because the best part of a gift is often wondering what’s inside. I rushed through the whole thing, trying to get all the answers and missing my own party. I think about this birthday a lot, because it taught me a lesson I’ve continuously had to relearn over and over throughout my life.

I was in a rush to grow up, a rush to graduate college, a rush to land a TV show, and a billboard outside my ex-boyfriend’s apartment. I spent most of my twenties alone in dark rooms listening to Tori Amos and journaling about how misunderstood I was as a privileged, blonde girl whose dad paid her rent. I refused to go out with people my own age because what would be the point? They were just as lost as I was, and frankly, not additive enough to the story.

(One time I went out. I hated it.)

Everywhere I’ve ever been has felt a little temporary, like a waiting room I’m trapped in before an operation.

I thought I’d never survive the years when my children weren’t sleeping through the night. I thought every weekend would be spent trapped inside the hellscape of the Tribeca red park playground. But those moments are behind me, and what’s tragic is that while I was in them, struggling to get out, my life was happening anyway. My kids were growing up, and I was standing in memories that I can now only access through pictures.

When you’re young and ambitious, or maybe just middle-aged with ADHD, it feels impossible to appreciate anything while you’re in it. The highest highs of my life have all hit like pennies disappearing into a bottomless well. I’d wait- maybe a moment or two for the sound of something landing, but before it ever did, I was on to the next. Hoping that the next thing would finally be the one that cured me- the one that made me feel worthy and validated in a way that has always evaded me.

I leave for Italy on Wednesday, which sounds soooo Eat, Pray, Love considering the current state of my life. But I’m not going to find myself or sleep with some beautiful Italian stranger. I already have two half-Italians at home.

I’m actually just going because a friend invited me to her birthday party. It also happens to be my birthday as well.

It’s unlikely I’ll see clowns, or Coors Light, or my mom getting buzzed in a corner, but if I come across a piñata, I absolutely intend on beating the shit out of it.