4: Penny Board

[The] board is a lot more intuitive than people assume. You get on it and all you have to do is put one foot on the tail and one foot on the nose and rock it up and down and that will get you into the tricks or wheelies or manuals. It's not about the balance so much as it is about the timing.

- Tony Hawk (Source: ESPN interview )

My birthday tends to be a sensitive subject for me.

I find some comfort in knowing I am not alone in this experience. A bit of light googling reveals the phenomenon is apparently common enough to warrant a specific moniker like “The Birthday Blues.”

Personally, I have always suspected people feel weird or sad or awkward on their birthdays for all the same reasons people feel weird or sad or awkward about things like parent-teacher conferences, work performance reviews, and routine dentist appointments. They are sort of like annual evaluations, aren’t they? God, the universe, science, a wonky wheel of fortune — whatever you tend to call it — bestows you with the priceless gift of another full trip around the sun… so how have you been spending your present?

Much like how those conferences and reviews and appointments might make someone think about their professional progress or daily habits, my birthdays tend to force me to reflect on the bigger picture, i.e., my personal relationship with the immutable and uncompromising passage of time: Have I done enough since my last birthday? Have I spent my time wisely? Have I made the right choices in the moments it mattered most? I find I am rarely satisfied by my answers. So, while I like to think I am pretty decent at planning and enjoying other people’s birthdays, I guess I’ve never quite figured out the trick to celebrating my own.

Of course, the nice thing about knowing you tend to get weird about your birthday is that you can plan ahead for it.

My birthday this year fell on a weekday, so I decided to take my geriatric rescue dog and my silly, goofy brain out on a walk around a park near my house before work. I had probably been walking around for only fifteen to twenty minutes when some random teenage boy on a skateboard rolled past my dog and me. He did one of those little jump trick things (please do not ask me to be more specific), then rolled off the sidewalk to pass us. It was barely an interaction, and I didn’t think much of it at the time.

I proceeded with the rest of my day: I went to work. I laughed a lot. I fretted a bit for no discernible reason. I was delighted and surprised by the generosity of others who were eager to celebrate my birthday. I got stuck in a bit of traffic. I enjoyed a lovely pasta dinner and some tiramisu cake with my loved ones. Altogether, it was a relatively easy, simple day.

So, perhaps you can understand why I was a bit surprised to find myself watching YouTube skateboarding videos while I got ready to go to sleep that night. I guess the little trick struck me more than I thought, and it didn’t stop there, either. Instead of drifting off to sleep after scrolling on my phone, I proceeded to get out of bed, go to the storage container in my backyard, and dig around until I finally found my gross, dusty, barely-touched penny board.

Truly, it’s nothing special. I bought it at Target on a whim when it was on sale one day and it probably cost me less than fifteen dollars. Prior to this night, I had only used it twice in my whole life: once on the day that I bought it and another time the day after I bought it so I could convince myself it was definitely, one hundred percent worth it that I bought it in the first place. The last time I thought about the board at all was when my little sister asked to try it out months prior. Yet there I was, the night of my birthday, in the middle of a February winter — okay, yes, I am in California, but still, what was I even doing out there? — shivering in a hoodie and pjs, trying to roll around my backyard in a pair of house slippers on the closest thing I owned to a proper skateboard.

I won’t keep you in suspense: If you think this story is going to end with me discovering a natural affinity for a new skill, please be so serious for one second. Anyone who has ever met me could tell you I am a clumsy person, even with my two (left) feet planted firmly on the ground. Adding wheels to the equation doesn’t exactly improve my situation. In total, I was outside for maybe twenty minutes before I called it a night. And while I had sort of managed to roll around a bit by the end of my impromptu session, it was at a pace that would have been outdone by an average sloth.

When I went back inside and got ready for bed (again), I reflected a bit on the day I had and attempted to offer myself a bit of grace at my utter lack of grace. Strangely, a quote from my little skateboarding research session kept popping up in my mind. While I had been watching skateboarding videos earlier that night, I had stumbled across a Tony Hawk interview where he was promoting his new (at the time) video game. In his interview, Hawk briefly commented on the skateboarding piece of the gaming experience, stating:

I also think that the board is a lot more intuitive than people assume. You get on it and all you have to do is put one foot on the tail and one foot on the nose and rock it up and down and that will get you into the tricks or wheelies or manuals. It's not about the balance so much as it is about the timing.

That last bit — “It’s not so much about the balance, as it is about the timing.” — resonated with me as I drifted off to sleep, and it still does even now as I write this post.

I know Tony Hawk was just trying to promote his video game in that little interview, but something about the way he phrased that last line made me think there might be a deeper wisdom buried here that I can learn from as I continue to evolve in my young adulthood (and yeah, maybe I am just being overly sentimental and reading into things, but give me a break, okay? I was an English major. Also, sorry if I’m still determined to find some meaning in my limited time on earth).

I think most advice aimed at young adults center around the language of “balance:” Don’t do too much and don’t do too little. Make time for friends and make time for your partner. Go out and stay in. Socialize with others and protect your own time. Work as hard as you can and don’t let it become your life. Always this and always that. Finding balance just seems to be the go-to answer for most stressors and challenges that need navigating in young adulthood, if not adulthood in general.

However, while I do think there is something really powerful and productive in using the language of “balance” to navigate your twenties, there is also something about it that strikes me as unfair. Doesn’t it seem a little burdensome? Maybe even incomplete? Personally, I find that overemphasizing the value of balancing one’s life can suggest that we all have a little more control over our lives than is probably accurate.

The truth is, sometimes, like video games about skateboarding, life isn’t about balance so much as it is about the timing. You can balance all aspects of your life — health, wealth, love, work, play, and everything inbetween — and still feel unsatisfied. You can do everything right and still not get the promotion, the offer, the publication, the friend, the date — whatever it is. Sometimes you just need to know and accept that it isn’t your time yet. Everything is going to be okay.

Plus, the language of “balance” has a tendency to make it sound like some sort of event, as if finding that balance means you’ll finally get an award for completing some sort of philosophical scavenger hunt. Let this fuel you long enough, and I promise it is going to burn you out. I mean, maybe there is such a thing as a “perfect balance.” Maybe you look for it so hard, you actually do find it. What are you going to do when you realize it’s only the perfect balance for today? How will you rise to the occassion when tomorrow demands new strength from you? What if next week raises that bar even further? What if next year practically expects you to be a new person? Acknowledging the far bigger role that timing can play in your life can free you from feeling like you have to strive for constant self-improvement.

Be gentle with yourself. And remember that time is your friend, even when it might not feel like it.

As for me, I still don’t really know how to feel about my birthday. I’m probably going to continue feeling a little weird about it. I’m almost certainly never going to find myself skateboarding at night again to celebrate it. However, I do know I’m grateful for my latest go around the sun, and I look forward to all the gifts that time has yet to give me. And when your next birthday rolls around, I hope that’s true for you, too.

Have a great day.