Tag Archives: birthday

Doing the Right Thing

“Dear Mom, 

Happy 60th Birthday. I hope your day is filled with Love. 

Love, 

Karen”

I said it. I meant it. Your flowers, with that message attached, will arrive on Saturday. Your 60th birthday. It didn’t take time to think up that message. It came as naturally to me as a knee jerk at the doctor’s office when they check your reflexes. I felt relieved by that fact- knowing it wasn’t forced or fake. I could have written a lot of things in that card. For example-

I wish we were closer. 

I hope to see you soon. 

I miss you. 

But none of those things would be true. I just celebrated my birthday and I was with the person I love more than anyone in the whole wide world-the one person in this world who gets me, who gives unconditionally, who just does the right thing. 

Doing the right thing comes in a lot of forms. For me, a big part of it is trusting that someone will what’s in your best interest; they’ll reciprocate without you having to ask; they give of themselves equally. They are like your star power-being around them makes you feel superhuman. They encourage you, they make you better, they are there for you when things get ugly. 

On Saturday, I do hope that my mother’s day is filled with love. I hope that someone takes her out for lunch, that the flowers I sent her are not the only ones she receives, that someone is there to sing her happy birthday. I hope, most of all, that she does not feel obligated to call me to say Thank You. She didn’t call me on my birthday, and that silence is so incredibly loud. It’s the kind of silence that echoes inside you if you let it. I don’t anymore. I have no expectations of her, but I do choose to do what feels right in my heart. I choose not to pursue contact with my mother anymore, because it does me more harm than good and I in a good place. I am finally ready to give and receive love and I don’t want that door to close. I am, however, still happy to push love in her direction. 

“..close some doors. not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they no longer lead somewhere.” — paulo coehlo

The Battles We Choose and the Ones We Don’t

There is nothing quite like a birthday (April 5th, in case you were wondering) to remind you of your mortality. Or maybe I’m the only fucked up weirdo who thinks about dying when they should be thinking about birthday cake. The other day, I was thinking about that whole dying thing as I was doing the dishes (a prime time to ponder your existence on earth, if you ask me) and how lucky I am to have friends I plan on keeping around until we both die. How insanely lucky I am to have a best friend who is flying 3,000 miles to spend my 30th birthday with me. How fortunate I am to have someone to be this silly with. Someone who just gets me. Someone who is putting in so much work (it doesn’t go unnoticed) to continue our friendship from afar-texts, video chats, phone calls, voice mails, emails, postcards, care packages, etc. I’m floored. I’m loved. She is my person-my In Case of Emergency and my In Case of Excitement. No matter what it is, she’s there. And I am eternally grateful.Image

The Universe must have heard my internal musings over dish soap as I waxed poetic about the idea of spending forever with someone and today this rolled by my Facebook stream. I clicked on the link and scrolled through the photos and by the end, tears were shamelessly streaming down my face at my desk. I would post one of the photos as an example, but I don’t want to steal his amazing work and I have no idea how to navigate the insanity of internet rules of properly attributing his work and this is one of those subjects you really don’t want to get caught being an asshole even if you didn’t mean to be one (if you know how to do this properly, please leave me a comment with your email address and I will send you a gift. I’m not even kidding), so just humor me and click on the link and visit The Battle We Didn’t Choose. 

It got me thinking about the monumental task of relationships and marriage-how we are all looking for someone to die with. Someone who will sleep next to us as we take our last breath. Someone who will forever remember us until they take their last breath alone. Or someone who will leave us first. The bravery it takes to sign up for that. How lucky we should all be to have That Person. We’re all faced with battles we didn’t choose, but by letting someone in, we’re bound to face a battle eventually. Until then, let’s celebrate. Let’s drink champagne and jump on the beds of fancy hotels and send each other post cards and gifts for no reason. Let’s just love each other. K? 

California: Thank You and See You Soon

Karen Nicole Costa

Happiness is being on a beach with the sun on your shoulders and the breeze in your hair


California, how do I begin to thank you? I needed to escape Boston in a desperate kind of way-the grey, rain, and cold was too much for me. I needed vitamin D, the breeze in my hair, and a change of scenery. The best part of traveling is that you can be whoever you want, because nobody knows who you really are. It’s a chance to start over, even if only for a short while, so I pretended to be a happy girl from Boston scouting out neighborhoods to move to when the time is right. I fit right in to Santa Monica-the vibe and the people were my speed and I apparently look like a local; tourists asked me for directions. Little did they know that I was a tourist, too. “You look like you’re from here,” an older woman said. I dog-eared the compliment.

Being out here was not only an escape, but a great way to get over B. While the relationship had been over long before it ended, I’d been performing CPR on it for months, hoping with every chest compression that I could bring it back to life. Every breath I forced into its chest was air I was losing. I was finally able to catch my breath in California. In a strange way, I guess I could thank him for doing what he did; I was ready to move to New Jersey to be with him and now I can leave-no more feeling torn between two dreams-being with someone I love and being somewhere I love. Thanks. Not for breaking my heart, but for setting me free.

People talk to each other here and make eye contact. I felt rude walking around with headphones on, so I didn’t. I felt safe here. Knowing that a place like this exists gives me hope, a feeling so foreign to me that I want to both hold it as close to my heart as possible and treat it like I’m nervously taking a piping hot lasagna with cheese and sauce bubbling over the sides out of the oven with dollar store pot holders. I’ve never had so many strangers chat me up before.

“I love your shoes”
“I love your tattoos”
“I love that book you’re reading”
“You look so cute in your sunglasses”
“You look really pretty today”

A place like this exists?

My experience with the men (though brief and not at all involved) in California was great-they were polite, chivalrous, and direct. If they think you’re cute, they’re going to ask for your number and ask you out to dinner. This is not the Missed Connections crowd. I don’t know if it’s because LA is such a competitive culture or if that’s just the way it is in California, but I’ll take it.

I made some great contacts here and found places that feel like home to me, which is rare. I don’t attach myself to people, places, or things. I’m noun-aphobic, if you will, but no matter how hard I try, I’m going to miss California. When I dropped off my rental car, I took one last stroll down Abbot Kinney, passed through the beach, and onto Main Street in Santa Monica with a heaviness in my heart the whole time. Even now, I feel homesick for it, the way I did when I went to sleepaway camp for the first time. I remember the first night vividly. I was in my bed and I cried myself to sleep, longing for the smell of home and my own bed. As an adult, I’ve uprooted and moved enough times to be calloused-places are just places, things are just things. The only thing I ever take with me are friends and memories. I never leave those behind. This time feels different. My suitcase is packed and I’ve checked-in for my flight. In less than 24 hours, I’ll be landing in Boston, leaving behind the only place that’s ever felt like home to my heart.

See you soon.

A Birthday I Never Thought I’d See

It’s my 29th birthday today. It’s my birthday right now on the East Coast. Wow. I am really happy to be here.

A few months ago, I didn’t plan on seeing this day. I was in the deepest, darkest place in my head and my heart and I couldn’t escape. It felt like my personality was an ice cube melting in a warm can of soda. I’ve always had a gravity to me, and the knowledge that my happiness is different (less) than other people’s happiness, but this was worse than anything I’d experienced thus far. I was drowning. There was an anchor of sadness attached to me, dragging me under water no matter how hard I tried to swim.

I pushed everyone away and locked myself in my apartment and inside my head. I stopped returning texts, phone calls,emails and I swore up and down that I was fine, but I could barely get out of bed. I put on a brave face and went to work; work has been one of the only things in life I’ve been able to count on and something that makes up part of my identity.On the weekends I had a hard time getting out of bed and showering. If I accomplished the shower, I probably didn’t have any energy left over to do anything else.

“I’m so tired. I just want to sleep”

I just wanted to close my eyes and escape. I hid the depth of my sadness from everyone, ashamed that I couldn’t pull myself together and too proud to ask for help. I’ve overcome so many things in my life. I couldn’t fathom that this was an exception to the rule, but things got out of hand in January. The sadness was unmanageable. The anchors were trying to take me away. One night, I found myself writing goodbye letters to my friends and family and thinking about my exit plan. I was planning the goodbye posts on my digital properties and setting them up to go live after I would already be gone. Dead. That night changed my life. I made an appointment with my doctor the next day. I got about five words in before I started crying. He put his arm around me.

“Everything is going to be okay,” he said.

He asked me how long I’d been feeling this way. Then he asked why I waited so long to get help. If I had cancer, I wouldn’t be ashamed to get chemotherapy. In fact, I’d probably be racing other patients down the hospital hallways to try to get there first. I don’t know why I let myself deal with depression for so long. There is nothing shameful about my faulty neurobiology. Soon after seeing my doctor, I started reaching out to friends and I had a very honest conversation with my father. Telling my story helped so much. Saying everything aloud made it very real, very scary, very sad. Writing it down and sharing it is beyond terrifying.

I feel so much better now and I am so incredibly happy that the anchors didn’t drag me under. I am so happy to still be alive. Because nautical terminology kept creeping into my vernacular throughout my struggle, I decided to get an anchor tattoed on me. I chose the design one night with my best friend, L. She has a great eye for things and the Sailor Jerry anchor struck a cord with me. Once I chose the design, getting the tattoo became a persistent, nagging thought in my mind. One Saturday morning, I tweeted about wanting to get a tattoo. A few minutes later, my friend M dm’d me a photo of a girl.

Art gallery opening? I asked.

I think I want to get that tattoo today.

Look at my last tweet.

We had never. Ever. Ever in the history of our friendship ever discussed tattoos, especially not about her wanting one. The Universe was saying “Go. Now.” I’m not usually a believer in cosmic connections. in fact, I have an aversion to putting labels of significance on things-too many previous false positive results, but I’ll make an exception for this instance. It was walk-in day at Chameleon tattoo shop in Harvard Square. I emailed the design to myself, hopped in my car, raced over to Lower Allston, parked my car and as soon as I got out of the car, M sent me a message.

I have an appointment soon.

I walked as fast to get to her, afraid that I would miss her appointment. When I got to the tattoo shop, she looked calm and poised, which is kind of her thing-she has a gracefulness and beauty about her that I aspire to. It was her first tattoo, and it felt really special to share that moment with her. We already have a special closeness, a secret handshake; we’ve both experienced an emotional pain that few people understand. I stood in the doorway and watched her get tattooed. A memory was made-a happy one, a moment to celebrate survival. No, a moment to celebrate living.

I went after M and got the anchor on my left side-so it would stay close to my heart. My tattoo artist, John, was wonderful-I was in a lot of pain and he kept me laughing. It healed comfortably and quickly, but it felt weird having it on only . I immediately wanted to balance out the left side with a complementary anchor on the right side-I hate asymmetrical things. Tattoo fever was surely in the air. My friend, G, mentioned wanting a tattoo, but wasn’t sure what. Throughout the week, we talked about things that have shaped who we are today.

If you think about something every day, why not have a visual representation of it?

I’m a big believer in getting tattoes with meaning behind them. You might be the only person who knows what your tattoo means. That’s okay. G started working on a design. We set a time to meet on Saturday and when the time came, I picked him up and we made our way to Harvard Square. We put our names down on the waiting list. They called us a couple of hours later for our appointments. When it was my turn, he sat next to the table and kept me company. The second anchor hurt more than the first and I tried to focus on anything but the pain. The room was silent except for Florence And The Machine playing on John’s iPod. Out of all the things I’ve been through, physical pain, while uncomfortable, is the most tolerable. Out of nowhere, John broke the silence.

You have a very intense silence about you.

If he only knew.

G rubbed my leg when he could tell I was really hurting-he understood what I was feeling and I didn’t have to say a word. It wasn’t surprising-despite the fact that we’re practically strangers (if you judged our friendship by its duration), but we finish each other’s sentences, run into each other randomly on the street, and frequently message each other at the same exact time. In those moments where I feel strangely connected to people and silently understood, I’m so incredibly grateful to still be here.

I know my struggle isn’t over-I’m not foolish, but now I know how to ask for help and I’m surrounded by the most beautiful, caring, understanding, and supportive people. I have more than I could have ever dreamed of. I feel so blessed to have more than I need and to have friends who are my compasses, my North Stars, my lighthouses, and my life preservers. I don’t feel like I’m lost at sea anymore. I feel like I’m the captain of my own ship. No matter how hard the anchors pull at me, I will not sink.

Happy birthday to me.

It’s Your Birthday

It’s your birthday and I’m not coming home.

This day, every year, I feel as though I’ve been cleft down the middle, like a chicken breast. But I’m alive. My heart is beating. And it stings when the salt gets poured on me. Although I’m seasoned in dealing with this day, it always burns inside my heart.

Time’s been standing still between us for a long time. Everything’s different, but nothing’s changed: The vacant stare in your eyes that’s been there since long before I was born still pays rent to your face. The hair that grows out wiry and untamed from your head, evicting the coloring you put on it. Your health, your failing health that’s been borrowing against time, borrowing against death for years while you puffed away at cigarettes and ate refined carbohydrates.

mom

She always looks so sad in pictures

Me.
Alone.
Without you.
Even when I’ve been with you, I’ve been without you.
My character and personality is really just scar tissue, uneven, unpredictable, discolored, flawed, imperfect.

One day I had a mother. One day I had an enemy. And like a revolving door, we’ve been going on like this for years. Me, trying to love you, trying to accept you. Me, trying to escape you, trying to set up boundaries that you’d ultimately trample on like a wild elephant. You desiring my attention, but denying my affections. Me, begging for the truth. You, lying to my face. Me, giving you my heart and you stabbing me in the back.

If only I had an enemy smaller than your anger, I could have won. You, the most mercurial mother to have ever lived. One minute cheering me on in beauty pageants. The next, telling me how fat I was and forcing me to sleep outside in the backyard like a farm animal. One minute laughing with your friends. The next, slapping me across the face as I cried out for help, desperate to escape your anger, trembling. The anger you’ve never admitted to having. The things you deny ever happening. The images burned in my mind. They are things that are not just in my head.

When the tables turned and it was my turn to leave you, you looked at me wide-eyed, like a cat stuffed in a plastic carrier on their way to the vet. You pawed at me, clawed for my attention. You got wild, unruly, feral and I wished someone would put us out of our misery and euthanize our volatile relationship. But here we are on another April 13th walking on a tightrope of silence trying to keep our balance. One slip of a toe and we’re screaming at each other. One slip of the toe and I’m in tears. So we pull the tightrope tighter, solidifying our balance, solidifying our silence, solidifying the tension that can’t slacken without everything falling apart.

And, despite all of this, I hope you have a happy birthday in your own unhappy way.