Reflections on my birthday

I looked in the mirror and saw myself. I'm not sure of what I was looking for, but there I was looking back. I have, from time to time, been struck by an ability to see in a person that which will be. I'm not talking clairvoyance or premonition. Rather, there is that which will be that is evident in the that which is. Perhaps that has gone by other names in the past. I wanted to see, even in my less than ideal state, some image of what is coming that is not here already.

I remember Brita being "oh so excited" to watch Freaky Friday in which the teenaged protagonist gets to experience herself in fifteen or so years. At the end of the viewing--enjoyable if a little sillier than expected--she had a sort of anger and anxiety about it all. Brita was envious, or so I recall, of the protagonist getting to see one of the options laid out in front of her. I haven't spoken with Brita in some time, though she may follow the blog. I wonder now if she would want to see that person. I don't know. I mean, in many ways I wish I might tell a younger Caleb that all the anxieties of being young--girls/women (depending on the age), basic work, family, a sense of home--would be resolved. How many would be then kept guarded from that juvenile self?

The mirror showed myself: a wide face, a few gray hairs, slightly blood shot eyes, lips marred by wine. Nevertheless, there were no indicators of where this person might be going. I cannot see what I sometimes see in others: a potential placement in the world with clear attributes and directions. While I might calm the Caleb of ten years previous, I don't think I could calm the Caleb of only five years previous. He and I still share far too many misgivings about the world, about where he/I might be happy working, about he/I might be happy living, or with whom he/I might be living. It isn't an absence of possibility; rather, it is the overabundance of possibilities.

Tonight... Today, I get to enjoy the company of a dear friend, see a young woman I am infatuated with, enjoy the company of more than a dozen friends, play a game I get to throw myself into... And yet I am laden with ambiguities and delays that recall senior year more than hint at being a senior. I can spend ninety minutes discussing virtue, genius, direction, craft and so on, but that doesn't lay out what I might be doing in five, ten, twenty years any better than I could when u entered college (let alone high school).

Allow me to say that I am happy. I have divested myself of some emotional and academic weights, even tried to mend those gaps left behind. There are those hurdles--thesis work, roommate politics, work schedule, family responsibilities--still requiring my attention, though each provides its own lesson and potential boon. I am happy and maybe even a little relaxed compared to years before. What remains is the frustration of direction: while I may be able to find work once I complete my thesis, does it direct me any better than when I completed my undergraduate work? Am I any better situated?

I would not trade this deliberation and difficulty for anyone else's. There are those close to me struggling with their own crises that I do not envy. And then there are those that are years my senior dealing with the exact same. Where I am is my place, and I could be younger or older but still be here. I don't want to be excited for another board game or its expansion next year. I want to be excited to enter another stage of my life: a career I can delve into, a relationship with certainty and devotion (that is not said to undermine, but to outline where I am now), a place I might grow roots, or a home in which I might invest. At this point, none of these are clear and for that reason I am existentially concerned.

Are these strictly cultural concerns? Do the lifestyles of my parents and siblings construct illegitimate rules? Am I just aspiring for some status quo? Is the expansion of my film library as legitimate as the birth of the first daughter in my family since my sister less legitimate? (The last is clearly a jest, though I raise it for hyperbolic and playful, though not solely absurd reasons.) I am posed at the still young age of twenty-six with, What do I want out of my life? And secondly, though just as importantly, How can I achieve it?