I Have Thirty-Nine Years; Thank you Holly Fischer.

There’s nothing like experiencing your birthday and the death of a friend in the same week to make you reexamine, well, you know, everything. And it’s not just any birthday or any friend. Thirty-nine is like the numeric equivalent of sort of pregnant. I’ve been telling friends that I’d like to just skip thirty-nine because eight out of ten times when someone hears I’m thirty-nine they can’t help but let me know that “next year is the big 4-0.” Like it had never occurred to me. Ever.

My friend Holly Fischer also left this world last week. Her obituary was printed the day of my birthday, June 6th. To say it was surreal would be an understatement. Holly was my best friend freshman and sophomore year of high school until her parents moved her down to Charlotte. I was the new girl in school freshman year which was wretched. Like after school special wretched. But if I was on the high school equivalent of the Titanic, Holly was my life boat. She was smart, hilarious, stunningly beautiful and brave. She made me get involved in high school life in ways I never would have on my own. To say I was not an athlete would be a gross understatement. But Holly was bound and determined to make me try out for the Jv basketball team. At try outs I was horrified to learn that you actually had to dribble the ball from one end of the court to the other THE ENTIRE TIME. How I was going to do this was incomprehensible to me as I have trouble walking without tripping on my best days. But Holly just laughed and told me to relax and I ended up making the team. Did I mention that I am tall?

Holly’s path and mine crossed again right after college graduation. We both lived in the DC metro area. I worked on Capital Hill and she worked in Maryland for a large corporation. It wasn’t long after I arrived that Holly got news of a promotion and a transfer to another state. We had so much fun those few months together partying like we were sophomores in high school again and being goofballs. But I remember clearly one night right before she left her saying to me with all the earnestness of a twenty-something-year old: “you know, Nic, this job is what I’ve been working so hard for. This is a big deal with big money. This is the big time. I really finally feel like a grownup”

Eventually being a grown up proved too boring and so Holly left the corporate world, enrolled in Parsons School of Design in New York, and was in the process of opening her own design shop.

I picked these two stories to tell about Holly because they felt particularly relevant in light of turning this precipitous age and hearing of her death. Because there is always a lesson, right? I mean no matter how senseless and awful a thing can be there is always something to learn from it. And what I’ve learned this week is that you’re never really ever grown up. You’re never really done growing. So because of that you have to be brave. Always. As scared as you may be, find a friend and hold her hand, but do what is in your heart. Always. And treat each birthday as one more badge of honor, one more chance you’ve been given to find your happiness, and follow your bliss. My friend, Loud Erin, is Puerto Rican and she tells me all the time that in Spanish you say I have thirty-nine years because you have earned them and they are a blessing. So in tribute to Holly I will embrace each and every year I have left with the bravery and zest for life that she had. And I promise to remember that I am never really a grown up and always be that brave.

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