Abbey's Road: Celebrating nearly four decades of birthdays with thrift store restoration

I spent part of my 39th birthday giving a doll a bad haircut, and I feel like this embodies what it means to be approaching the end of my fourth decade of life.

It all started with a trip to the thrift store because I determined that I would spend my birthday Tuesday doing a few of my favorite things: Thrifting, eating tacos, drinking coffee made by a teenager in a visor (or really anyone besides me) and having conversations with my favorite people.

Birthdays are different when you’re a grown-up, and particularly a parent. When you’re a kid, you have a two-month mental countdown to your birthday and you write out lists for everyone to know what toys you’re hoping for.

You can’t sleep the night before because you’re THAT EXCITED to be turning another year older, and on the Big Day, you get hopped up on cake and ice cream and tear through presents like there’s no tomorrow and collapse in bed at the end of the day in a sugar-induced coma, surrounded by your favorite new things.

I’m not sure at what point that wears off; I’m thinking it’s kind of a slow burn.

When you’re a grown-up, you kind of glance at the calendar and think to yourself, “Oh! It’s my birthday tomorrow. Guess maybe I’ll boycott chores.”

For me, a good birthday means doing favorite things. I went for a bike ride outside (anyone with a February birthday can tell you this is a major victory); hit two of my favorite thrift stores; and bought myself my favorite fancy coffee (lavender honey latte) from a coffee shop. With a gift card, because c’mon.

At the second thrift store, on the bottom shelf in a far-off corner, I spotted a doll with deeply damaged hair and no pants whom my inner millennial immediately recognized as the American Girl named Kaya, albeit with half of a bad haircut and a few battle wounds.

Kaya has been on The Architect’s birthday and Christmas wish lists for years now, but she had yet to make an appearance in our home. So the fact that she was laying, battered, for $10 on a Goodwill shelf seemed fortuitous to me.

I picked her up and carried her around the store with me for awhile — as any good 39-year-old would — and as a millennial felt like this particular gift, which I intended to pass along to my 11-year-old, was meant just for me on this particular day.

I brought the doll home, put some clothes on her and then sat on my bed with some detangler and a brush and worked my way through the mass of tangled black hair. It didn’t take long to figure out that the previous owner only got halfway through the haircut before he or she either gave up or was caught in the act; the only way to salvage what was left was to even it out.

If there’s one thing I learned during COVID-19, it’s that I’m not capable of many things, including a basic, straight, single-layer haircut. But I came away from the experience with a home haircutting kit, and this is what I used to turn Kaya from “caught in a tornado” to “presentable” by the time school let out for the day.

The Architect was thrilled, and her face in that moment was one of my favorite birthday presents.

I guess that’s the crux of what happens as we age: At some point, the joy we get from ticking off another year and receiving everything we want shifts — in varying degrees — to the joy we get from sharing with others.

We stop celebrating the things we achieve by virtue of being one year older and instead find our fulfillment outside of ourselves. Not to say that we can’t still celebrate the milestones — I hear you, retirees! — but maybe the sweetness of another year is recognized in the acknowledgement of blessings and the joy of sharing them with others.

Of course, I love a new shirt as much as the rest of ‘em. But something about being able to GIVE on my birthday made it that much better.

So here’s to being almost-40: May the year bring a slew of opportunities to bring light to others’ lives and, ideally, give no more bad haircuts — to dolls or otherwise.

Abbey Roy is a mom of three girls who make every day an adventure. She writes to maintain her sanity. You can probably reach her at [email protected], but responses are structured around bedtimes and weekends.

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: Abbey's Road: Celebrating nearly 4 decades of birthdays by giving back