Birthdays, Plans, and Imagined Memories

It's currently 3:07 AM Sunday morning and I'm calling an official end to my birthday festivities. Things kicked off this past Thursday (my actual birthday) with a homemade pizza dinner with Mayra and my parents. We then went out to the downtown bars for a few drinks and wound up staying out way later than I had planned. A few hours later I was up for a day of work that I'm embarrassed to admit was a bit more of a blur than I would have liked. Friday evening I had a special dinner of sopes with Mayra's family and then passed out in Mayra's bed instead of going to the movies like we had planned. Today was the official "party," as people actually came by to celebrate and we did the whole huge dinner/opening presents thing.

Sure, Mayra and I are heading into Queens to grab some dinner with Terry and Micah tomorrow evening (okay, technically later tonight), so I could call that as part of the celebration, but I figure I shouldn't try and get greedy. I've had a real blast the past 72 hours and I think I'm good. I've had a great time with my family, had a blast with my friends, and been able to spend many hours with the woman I love. Couldn't ask for a better birthday.

I've decided that in my twenty-fifth year, I want to increase my creative output to the point where I actually output things I've created more often than "once or twice in a year if I'm lucky." I want to finish games, write stories, and God, do I ever wish I could draw again. I'm going to try and set aside more time for these forms of entertainment where all the fun is up to me, rather than relying so much on games, movies and books for prepared enjoyment. We'll see how this goes.

As I move past this (rather arbitrary) milestone and begin planning out what it means to me, it makes me think about how I dealt with the previous milestone of graduation from college and how I had imagined that would go. No real profound thoughts, just decompressing some things I've had in my head for ages.

I'll be honest by saying that I would occasionally day-dream about the idealized graduation scenario. I'd picture myself a little nervous but ultimately excited, Mayra by my side as I finished up my last remaining classes. I saw myself spending plenty of time with my friends, enjoying the last few weeks of our relatively consequence-free lifestyles. I could hear my family congratulating me as I met with them dressed in my cap and gown with my diploma in my hands. Things only became more romantic (I'm using that word in the classical sense) in my head when Mayra decided she would be studying abroad during my final semester at college, which meant she would be returning to the US just a few weeks before (or as I imagined it - just in time for) the end of my semester. I would go visit her during spring break and once she returned home she would come up and stay with me for the week leading up to graduation. I'd play these thoughts over and over again in my mind. It's a beautiful dream that's still vivid in my head to this very day.

Of course, it didn't happen like that at all. Yes, my family was there, but Bryan had accidentally planned out an overseas vacation at that time and had to miss my graduation weekend. Sure, I had plenty of time with my friends, but real life had claimed us far earlier than planned. And of course, Mayra wasn't there. She got sick less than a month into the first semester, and was just becoming acclimated to life outside of the hospital when graduation rolled around. (She did leave a voicemail on my phone wishing me a happy graduation. Mayra's simple message meant more to me than even I thought it would.)

I'm not angry or upset that this dream didn't become a reality. It's petty to take such matters personally. And besides, my last few weeks of school were filled with amazing memories that I often think back to. But I still think back to the idealized future I had in my head for so long. I always thought of myself as the kind of person who didn't get dragged along by his immature or overly specific dreams, but I had caught myself in the same trap as the girl who plans to have children by this year or the guy who enters school knowing from day one that he'll be a top physician.

And so as I look at where the rest of my twenties will take me (and even further than that), it's not just important to make sure that my roadmap has direction, but to also give it plenty of leeway and chances to move into other areas. If there's one thing I've learned in my twenty-four years that I'll make sure to remember in my twenty-fifth year, it's that your plans are always subject to change. Look to the future, reach for the stars, but don't be afraid to change things up.

(This post partially inspired by David Willis recently re-posting his old mini-series "Roomies: Is a Song Forever?", which first got me thinking about end-of-college scenarios back when I was first in college, and has gotten me reminiscing about it recently.)