I made it! I'll say that much.
It was yesterday. Wednesdays are not the best days to celebrate, especially here and there was lots of pending work. It was a good day. Things moved smoothly. We were so tired, we did not even have dinner.
Turning 50 looked remote and impossible when I was 10 years old.
I vividly remember one day at school. The teacher had scolded us because we had been too restless and noisy. "You are half men and women," she said. Thus, we started making numbers. We'd be full men and women by 1993. That looked so far ahead. So close from 2000! The year when cars would fly and we could teletransport anywhere.
It's funny how as time passes, your perception of it changes. 10 or 20 years from now do not look so far away or so promising anymore. 1993 arrived and we were making a mess of ourselves trying to look and behave like full men and women.
Then 2003 came; cars were not flying and we were as far from teletransporting as we had ever been. In fact, the world in many respects was going backwards in some places and some other respect it was going backwards everywhere
2013 came and things got really scary. We were stuck in a country that was losing everything, from their people, who were leaving by the millions, to hope itself, which was making those who stayed older by the day and feeling that their life expectancy had been reduced by two decades.
We started seeing people our age, and even younger get mortally sick and die of preventable and treatable illnesses. We started losing weight and being ashamed of greeting others on the streets, lest they'd make the typical Venezuelan remarks: "estás poquitico!"; "Estás acába'ito!" (You look fucking awful/emaciated)
It did not matter that those making the remarks were looking as bad as yourself. It's just the way it is with our people.
Things have improved a little bit since then, weight-wise. Things are the same, leaning towards getting worse economically and politically, but we have developed a certain cynicism about it all that allows us to just keep going without many expectations.
I cannot even remember how I imagined this birthday would be. I know it was not the way it just happened, but I know it could have been worse after so much. I was moved by the simple presents I got. The cakes I loved so much, the pie, and the good wishes of people I have known my whole life and people I did not know 10 years ago.
It saddened me, though, that my children were not with me, that they are far away and that they are all struggling with serious issues on their own. I would have loved to have celebrated with them because as time passes the inevitability of death becomes more present.
I must give thanks, though, because I have seen many of my peers (and many younger than me) leave due to different causes. I may not be where I thought I would at this point in my life, but I could very well just not exist. I try to make the best of every day and make those who still care about me know I too care about them. I keep trying to make some sense of my and leave some kind of good register. Something I might be remembered by.
The simplest and most gratifying things about living can't be found in the complex webs we're forced to spend our lives so laboriously weaving.
That much I've learned and I find solace in that realization.
