Stories from inside a creative life — the messy middle, the pivots, the parts that don't make the highlight reel. For anyone living a life that doesn't fit neatly in a box. Hosted by Stephanie Arapian — actor, writer, filmmaker, entrepreneur and former bartender. Still figuring it out.
Stephanie is turning 30, living in London, and stressing over “by age 30” comparison-itis.
She plans the party carefully: bowling, a couple hours of low-stakes fun, and invitations go out two weeks early, like any sane Virgo would do. Then the night before, the cancellations start rolling in.
Two or three people show up. It's a good time. But - it's not the milestone she pictured.
This is the story of a birthday that taught her she'd been letting other people decide her worth, and the smaller, deeper kind of connection where she actually thrives.
SPEAKER_00
Welcome to the Centered Creator Podcast. I'm Stephanie Arabian, actor, writer, producer, and now podcaster. This is where I share stories about my creative life, my travels, and my any questionable decisions. I hope you laugh, feel a little seen, and maybe learn something along the way. This one's about my 30th birthday bowling party, a guest list that mostly canceled and coming late into my superpower. I am recording this about one week out from my birthday in September. Woohoo! Virgos. Yes, I'm very Virgo. And I would like to share the story of my 30th birthday. Now, 30 was a few years ago. I was living in London at the time, so I'm wearing my London t-shirt. It will surprise no one that I am an Anglophile, and I'm actually going back to visit for my upcoming birthday. Woo-hoo. But I was feeling a bit anxious about this 30th birthday party. I was comparing myself to my younger siblings, who had both finished their graduate degrees by this point, and here I was hitting 30, and I hadn't quite gotten there yet. I was already doing some work around, yes, I haven't achieved that yet, but I have a lot of really cool, interesting life experience of living around the world that they don't have, so ha! Who wins? Again, not really a competition. With age comes perspective, so this is also about the joys of aging, I suppose. I was feeling anxious about not having achieved as much as I wanted to. At 30, it felt like a really big adult milestone that I had thoughts of where I would be in life by that point, which I look back at and laugh now. Also, it brought up a bit of my anxiety around parties in general and about who I was in relation to my friend groups. Because a lot of prior experience had taught me that I was not the rally person. I was not the, how do you phrase it? I was not the life of the party. I was not the person that was gonna draw everybody in and then host like a beast and just make everyone have the time of their lives. And on a quieter level, it felt very much like people don't gather for me. And so I had a lot of anxiety about trying to have and celebrate this adult milestone. Now, I had just moved from Germany to London a year before, and I had friends in Germany, but they obviously weren't gonna fly over to London for my birthday. So I was inviting mostly my cohort of fellow actors that I was learning on my course with. I'm a Virgo, as I've said, so I like planning. And I was trying to choose an event that would get everybody together and have a fun activity that people would be have fun with, but not spark conflict, and you know, all those things you think about when you're trying to host a good party. And I chose bowling because I liked bowling, and I actually used to be in a league when I was younger, and I'm a little bit competitive. But it's like a healthy competition, and we can let things go and still have a great time. Gutter balls are fun. So I had sent out invitations to this like bowling afternoon on a weekend party about two weeks before, and then because I'm a Virgo, I checked in about a week before, and as the day started creeping up, I started feeling a lot more anxious. Because again, a lot of my experience around friend groups and invitations had taught me some very negative things about myself. And sure enough, the night before my birthday party, the I'm so sorry started rolling in. Oh, I can't because, oh, I actually have to do this. And then the day of more people started flaking off. I was feeling kind of really disheartened, honestly. And the good news is that I did have two, three people show up for me. It was great. We had a good time, there was bowling, we had some drinks, we hung out for a couple hours, and then we kind of dispersed from there. And I had a nice dinner at home. But it wasn't the massive milestone celebration that I had wanted it to be. It was tinged with the disappointment of all the people that had decided I wasn't important enough to them in their lives to make space for, to celebrate a birthday. And that was harsh. That was really hard to live with. And it meant that I started managing more of my expectations. I started making myself smaller in groups. With time comes perspective. I can look back at that now and realize wow, I let other people decide my value so much. My whole life journey from that has been learning to undo that long habit of feeling like I was not worthy of people gathering for. And now I recognize that that was actually the right amount of people for me. Because I actually thrive on one-to-one conversations, on smaller intimate groups because I'm kind of intense. I like to get deep. I like to go there in the conversation. I like to start deep thinking. I get challenging questions. Small talk is not like I'm good at it. I'm good at small talk from a whole career in bartending, but I don't like it. It feels very false and fake, and I am not about that. I am about genuine, authentic, real feelings, emotions, journeys, and discussions. And that's a bit off-putting for some people. Not you, because you're listening. But it also means that when I am in a larger group of more than, say, four or five or six people, I retreat. I tend to fall back into either host mode or there's some kind of distance that I need to have between these people who are starting to be not genuine. The larger a group gets, the more superficial it feels like the small talk gets, because that's just how you have to, you have so many people that you need to interact with and talk to that you can only barely skim the surface. And I'm not a skim the surface person. I am a, let's stop, let's pause, let's go deep. My birthday celebration, only having two or three people was actually the amount of people that I could really enjoy myself with because I could be myself most authentically. And I think I heard this many, many years ago. It's not about where you go, it's who you're with. That is so true for me. Like people could ask me, what do you like to do? What is your favorite group hangout? What is your favorite group activity? And honestly, it's less about what I'm doing, whether it's bowling or going clubbing or out or to a picnic or off to a concert, as who I'm doing it with. The people and the connections are more what matter to me. And that took some time to recognize that I have this superpower. This is actually where I thrive. I thrive in one-on-one. I thrive in intimacy, and I don't need the large groups. They're actually not that great for me. So being the life of the party, hosting a party, still probably causes a little bit of anxiety for me. But with age comes perspective. So here's to giving less fucks about what people think of you. I am valuable, I am so worthy, I am priceless. Yeah. And if I am too much for some people, great. You do you. I'll do me. Thank you for listening. Take care.
