The Birthday World

Me (second from left) at my own birthday party in Karachi. The adult is my mother.

In the final episode of Stargate: SG1, the characters narrowly escape death at the hands of the followers of the Ori—the totalitarian theocratic cult that is that season’s main adversary—by creating a time dilation field within which to shelter. Outside their time bubble, a laser dissects the immensity of space, its rounded tip, like that of a giant knitting needle, headed inexorably for their spaceship, to destroy it. The crew have bought themselves time to work out how to cheat death and prevent the galaxy from falling into the hands of these murderous religious maniacs, whose gods have gone up in flames but whose faith remains incandescent. The series’ plucky resident brainiac Lieutenant-General Samantha Carter announces that it will take her at least three weeks to find a solution to their predicament. In fact, it takes much longer. It takes so long that a will-they-won’t-they flirtation turns into an honest-to-god marriage (to this viewer’s deep satisfaction), while the actors are caked in steadily accreting layers of wrinkles in some of the worst stage make-up and wigs I’ve ever seen. (Except the alien Teal’c, played by hunky Christopher Judge, who sports a dashing badger stripe of grey but is otherwise completely unaltered.)

The characters in the show, of course, want to leave the time dilation field. They have a galaxy to save. But to me, it seems like paradise. As my birthday approaches and the days start running dry on the 56th year of my life, I’ve been making believe I’m in a miniature time dilation field of my own. Over the past few weeks, Sydney has been drenched in seemingly unending rains, day after day after day. Their constant white noise was as soothing as the hum of a warp core engine (to mix my sci fi metaphors). Venturing out into the world would have been foolhardy in these conditions: I was happily trapped at home, with my water glass glowing ruby, my feet in Uggs and crossed at the ankles on a leather footstool, in my pyjamas, on my favourite seat, with twin lamps bathing the living room in a soft light and Cookie’s sweet poodle face looking across at me from her nest between her owner’s knees. There have been a series of those relaxing autumn evenings when darkness descends so quickly that I could spend four full luxurious hours in that lovely state of ready-for-bed, snug and watertight, escaping my own life into the alternative reality of science fiction.

As I’ve got older, I’ve found birthdays increasingly difficult in anticipation. They encourage reflection, they make me want to take stock of the journey so far. And when I do that, regrets and self-recriminations threaten to overwhelm me. In youth, I had a healthy body, an attractive face, a sharp intellect and people who loved me with devotion. I could have leveraged those advantages into a comfortable and successful life. Instead, I made a series of foolish decisions and ended up, in middle age, without real estate or savings, without enough money in my pension to see me through, without a husband or a permanent home, without many of the things I’ve always longed for. There have been times in my life when I’ve felt as though I were tightrope walking through time, clinging precariously to the present, keeping my eyes doggedly fixed on the future, arms flailing, stomach churning, because beneath me was a deep, deep drop into the past: into embarrassing scenes and opportunities missed and people mistreated. And if I fell, I would go on replaying them forever.

I’ve written elsewhere in this Substack in more detail about one of the ways in which I defeat those thoughts (see link to that post, “Travellers,” below). But one thing to remember is that we’re all gifted with a time dilation field. We’re all stardust creatures, hurtling through space. My consciousness sprang into existence from nothing. The mechanisms through which this arose are known: the apes coming down from the trees to walk upright amid the ancient plains; then, millions of years later, in a Pakistani autumn, my father’s sperm was a space laser piercing the rotund little ship of my mother’s ovum. But the ultimate origins of my consciousness are mysterious. It’s the tiniest blip in the immensity of deep time, the tiniest pinprick in the extension of deep space, this human life. Most of the universe is bleak and hostile, cold emptiness with the occasional catastrophic cosmic light show—black holes and supernovae, pulsars colliding—like they say of warfare, it’s long stretches boredom punctuated by occasional moments of terror. But through an extraordinary stroke of luck, I’ve been gifted this time bubble that is human-shaped and sized because I was one of the winners in a lottery in which the odds against me were fantastically close to infinite.

In her wonderful new essay collection, The Catastrophe Hour, Meghan Daum writes that she often tells her students that you can’t write about things as they’re happening; it’s like trying to see yourself clearly while you are smooshed up against a mirror. I feel most comfortable smooshed up against that mirror. It’s when I take a step back that I feel dismay.

My day-to-day life here in Sydney is very happy. I live in a beautiful house with a pool to dip in (though it’s currently making me gasp a little with cold), friends I love—and who cook for me, an incredible luxury—and the most gorgeous little ringleted fluff ball in the world. I have lovely friends. I have a job I find interesting and fulfilling. It’s only the bigger picture that alarms me sometimes. (I feel the same way about Australia: it’s the most beautiful, prosperous and liveable place imaginable but the longer-term picture suggests a clear slippage into economic and social decay, which I hope people will have the good sense to recognise while the ship can still sail through undamaged, with only a few evasive manoeuvres.)

And I feel the same way about my one immediate lack: a partner. I’ve been single for coming up on a year now, having broken up with my last boyfriend a few days after my birthday. On a daily basis, I almost never feel: I wish I had a boyfriend with me right now. It’s only when I contemplate longer stretches of time that I feel, acutely, that I don’t want to be single, I don’t want to be without my person—wherever he is—for the rest of my life, especially as I approach old age. And I know that the older I get, the more difficult it will be to find that person. Dating in your fifties feels like playing a game of musical chairs. The music could stop at any moment. And all the chairs seem to be already taken.

Birthdays are a reminder of the deadly space laser headed my way. They prompt me to leave my seat in the mess room and stride over to the viewscreen to contemplate the stripe of brightness that dissects my vision like the aura that presages a migraine. My gods are dead and I have no galaxy to save. But with any luck, I will pilot my ship for a while longer. I will escape being vapourised for seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months, years—for decades even, I hope. And while I do, the voyage through the wonders of the universe will continue. And I’ll be alive to all its terrors and marvels.