A Birthday Post

No Shame, 100% true: it's my favorite day of the year.

A lot of people in the DNA-discovery community mark the occasion of their DNA moment with a REbirthday. With a cake or a cocktail, and social media post, my friends write about the day that results came in, or the envelope arrived in the mail, or the phone rang. In my case, it was a facebook message to my husband, screen-shot and sent to me. Fairly awkward string of events, really.

Petaluma birthday; age 6 (?)

I don’t do a rebirthday, although I understand and support my peers who do. I’m not sure when it would be, which is a part of the murkiness of my experience. It was March, no it was April. My cousin was getting married. It was during a meeting I always attend at 2:00. What if it’s the day the letter arrived, though, from the DNA testing company? Then, it was April or May. It was during the day. Or what about the message my half-brother sent me in 2015? He was too cryptic to be taken seriously, but it was still first contact. What if it’s this summer, when I meet him for the first time?

My normal regular day of birth is February 26. I love it. Maybe because it’s the safest day all year to be wholly myself, ask for what I want and need, I don’t apologize for existing, I get to choose dinner and dessert. Despite depression, trauma, anxiety, ADHD, and all the other blah blah blah I talk to doctors about, I am grateful to have been born, for this one day at least.

My mother says it was snowing the 26th of February 1980.

It is not snowing here in Los Angeles today, 44 years later. (OK! Now you know. 44. Let’s not make it a big deal.) It’s a Monday, and I’m playing it low key this year. My daughter is baking me a cake. We may order pizza.

the only other birthday picture I could find: my 21st, less low key.

The ERPRT continues to plod along; the updates are small but mighty. My bud Lydia Hyslop is helping me craft a sponsorship letter I’ll be begging mailing out this week to every single business in my neighborhood. (You and I both know that Kebab on York is unlikely to be a huge supporter ERPRT, but my mom always says “You never know unless you try!”) Lily has been an amazing Production Assistant, putting together spreadsheets and teaching me about tiktok. I’ll launch a crowd-funding campaign later this spring. Because all of this doesn’t feel vulnerable enough, I am also reaching out to podcasts to pitch myself as a guest; so far the responses are kind and enthusiastic….”think about its.” Do you have podcast or a friend who has a podcast, or a cousin who always wanted to start a podcast? CALL ME. I am a fun guest.

I continue to feel deeply inspired, and wildly anxious, about this entire project.

And, each week, I meet with my Therapeutic Process Writing group, and it keeps me alive. The two hours I spend with these folks each week is two hours I feel at peace, my breath is steady, and my heart smiles as I learn from these brave and vulnerable souls about this process of…life. Of identity exploration. Of existential reflection. Of uncomfortable emotions and unpleasant truths. (I also learn about the location of Wyoming, about snakes in Minnesota, about the Philadelphia projects, about Latter-Day Saints in Idaho.)

Last night’s group was more of the same in all the right ways. I can’t stop thinking about what one member wrote in her latest piece about her DNA-discovery , so I am going to leave it here for you in case it’s something you need, too.

“We survive and grow; perhaps the muck we’ve had to slog through has hidden nutrients.”

If Ben Digati is reading this, “no mud, no lettuce,” amiright? If you know, you know.

For my birthday, if you’re asking, I’d love it if you took a minute to share this project with one person, or just everyone you know on all the social media platforms and in your email contacts list. (OK but.)

At least click the heart to “like” this post.

If contributing cash to the road trip is more your style, my venmo is @evesturges ; it will go straight on the one of the spreadsheets Lily has set up.

-Eve February 2024

Thanks for following along and believing in the road trip. As promised, this substack is divided into two experiences. Beyond the paywall below, subscribers will find my deeper process writing, based on Who Even Am I Anymore, which I hope will become the foundation of a book by the end of this project. If you’re interested in my writing process group, hosted Thursdays with Hiraeth Hope & Healing, visit this link here.

If you’ve listened to the podcast, and are looking for a way to support my mission, please consider subscribing, or sharing this with someone you know.

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Who Even Am I Anymore

page 18. How Does Your Story Feel? In Your Heart? In Your Mind? In Your Body?

I don’t really want to write this, and the unfortunate result, dear reader, is this brain drain splish splush of words instead of something well crafted and edited. Heart, mind, body? WHAT. Sorry, not sorry.

My story feels like somebody else’s life, not mine. Can something be unreal and definitive at the same time?