The plant next to my nightstand is dying, and no matter how many times I’ve written a ‘to-do’ note to water her, I can’t bring myself to. The ends of her pointy leaves are brown and her soil is crusty and dry; she’s in a constant rotation of living and rotting. Every morning, I wake up to the sound of my 10-year-old cat meowing—borderline screeching—followed by my two-year-old daughter giggling while echoing the cat from down the hall (“Mama, mama, lo-lo said ‘MAW!’”). When I open my eyes, I squint to see the time on my phone (6:21 a.m.), and as my visions settles towards the sunrise and my nose zones in on the scent of flora death around me, my first conscious thought is: Fuck. I forgot to water the plant again. Every day I forget. And every day, this cycle of forgetting and remembering repeats itself.
And it’s not just about the plant. I’m turning 35 next week, and I’m not sure what I thought 35 would look or feel like, but I didn’t imagine I’d be the type of person to add “sex” to my Google calendar. The truth is, I need the reminder. “I just want to feel close to you, babe,” my husband pleaded a few weeks ago, with a genuine longing. I sat there on our couch truly hearing his words, feeling heartbroken at the sudden realization that I’ve been forgetting to water our relationship too.
And then, my friends. I won’t be celebrating my 35th birthday with them. My friends feel far away because they are. Catching up is another item on my to-do list. When the stars finally do align for a phone call, while the kids are asleep, and I’ve dealt with the guilt of letting the loads of laundry pile up, our conversation is in a rush while we shove our chaotic lives into a few sentences. We all feel like we’re failing and dealing with some type of shit, and yet we deduce it all to one sentence: Adulting is fucking hard. No one knows how to be a grownup, and yet we’re all pretending to be one. I even forgot my best friend’s birthday a couple of months ago, for the first time since we’ve known one another, over twenty years. I don’t even remember what happened that day, but I was drowning in sickness and motherhood. I’ve never needed a calendar reminder for her birthday.