Mohini Kundu

I turn 35 next week. As I’ve gotten older I’ve come to believe that birthdays are ruined by expectations. If you’re looking around every corner for an elaborate surprise, but instead you get a beautiful but very unoriginal bouquet of your favorite flowers, you’ve ruined your own day, haven’t you?

In recent years I’ve adopted a new tactic: I like to think I’ve woken up on any ordinary day (if I actually forget it’s my birthday all the better), and randomly dozens of people in my life choose the same moment to message me or call me to catch up. I may even get a couple cards in the mail (my love language). What an unbelievable treat. Even the brands that wish me happy birthday and offer me a free token make me feel like I’ve taken a vial of Felix Felicis. Everything goes my way.

This year, I can’t help but count my blessings. It’s my first birthday after becoming a mother. I’m officially no longer a spring chicken. I read somewhere that the start of parenthood signifies the end of youth. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do feel more like an adult than I ever have. I no longer need a new year’s resolution to get my ass out of bed and take care of myself. More often than not, there is fresh food in my fridge and the laundry basket volcano doesn’t erupt as regularly as it once did. And yet, as a new parent I’m reminded constantly that there’s still so much I don’t know — so I can’t say I feel grown.

Until the 19th century, 30 odd years was about the average life expectancy for most humans. Not one of the Brontë sisters lived to see her 40th birthday. Alexander the Great conquered continents in his 32 years of life. It’s a relatively new phenomenon, the privilege of such an extended adolescence.

Though the context has changed profoundly over time, I’m fascinated by this particular season of life. I’m no astrologer, but the concept of Saturn return rang with some truth for me. Entering my 30s came with an upheaval of my sense of self, a noticeable shift in habits and behaviors that served me or didn’t. On the other side of that process I’m grateful for it. But in the midst of it, it was a painful death of a version of myself. I didn’t want to let her go. When I was younger, the thought of eventually losing her felt catastrophic. She is gone — not lost entirely, but transformed. With yet another passing birthday she becomes smaller and smaller in my rearview mirror.

So today I’ll take a chance to look back at her clearly, love her far-too-loud laugh, her endless energy for dance classes, the way she would say hi to the ocean whenever she went to the beach, her excitement every time she left the house because “you never know who you might meet.”

I could spend my days mourning, crying over my grey hairs, and feeling frankly terrified by new aches and pains. Instead I choose to love her, and love who I am now, and remember that everything I get from here on out is cake.