On March 16th, 2004, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, my mother was so heavily pregnant you wouldn’t believe it. I was a really big, healthy baby with a due date of late March. My mom was enjoying her evening with my father when she felt a weird, watery sensation on the couch. It was 8:32 PM, her water had broken, and I was on my way. After a quick, painless labor, I was born, all bloodied and crying, at 11:48 PM local time. In the room, stood my father and my grandmother, who lifted me up and showed me around the room of doctors: “This is Manuela. This is our family’s first-born grandchild, our first girl.” Even from birth, I was a fan of grand entrances.
Things are very different now that I’m 20, I guess. 20 feels like a weird age to be. I feel so old, but I know I’m so young. Everyone tells me my life has just begun, but why do I feel like I have no time left? I want to do everything and go everywhere, but at the same time, I just want to do nothing and stay in Western Massachusetts lazing around. How am I supposed to be an adult now?
The people who can help me answer that question are so, so far away. How do we deal with goodbyes? One day, I was literally inside my mother, and now we are 1,436 miles away from each other. How does that work? How is it fair that one day I won’t have her anymore? My 20th birthday was the first time I had a birthday without my family, choosing to stay in South Hadley. Even though I had a wonderful day full of fun, that was the weirdest sensation in the world. I’m supposed to just do birthdays in small groups? I was raised with at least 5 people in the house at all times. How am I supposed to live with two, including me?
This birthday also got me thinking about death a lot. It was near the one-year anniversary of my grandmother’s death (yes, the one in the room when I was born), and not having her call me felt so unnatural. How am I supposed to deal with that for the rest of my life? No more calls from Grandma complaining about Grandpa? How is that fair? You’re telling me one day I will get no calls because everyone will be gone? I don’t understand how I’m supposed to live with that. I don’t understand how anyone does.
Life truly isn’t fair. I miss being a kid when my one concern was whether people would make fun of my Cinderella backpack. I guess I’m going through my ⅕ life crisis.