It’s a quiet evening here at the house; the eve before my 50th birthday. I can hardly believe it. More accurately, I don’t want to believe it. I mean fifty seems so OLD and I’m not old… Am I?
That was a rhetorical question. Questions such as this need no response — especially when the body has a tendency to scream the painful truth. Unlike a nicely aged wine, bodies have a tendency to not age so beautifully.
It is better than the alternative.
I have to admit, I do enjoy waking up each day to greet the new. I cherish the special moments with the ones I love. Even though there is much worry and stress in each day, there is also love and appreciation for all the little things that make life so precious.
As celebrations go, I have learned not to set my expectations too high. Growing up, I remember many-a-birthday sitting a waiting for my friends to return home from their Christmas’ away from home. Often times, none of my friends were available for my birthday sleepover — given it was only two days after Christmas. As I grew older, I became accustomed to people just plain forgetting. If I was lucky enough to receive a phone call from my own father, it was a miracle.
Why I thought that this year would somehow be different, I don’t know. When the all-to-familiar words “If it weren’t for your birthday…” came, the 50 years of built up disappointment all came to a head. YaYa asked me why I was so angry. My response, stemming back to my childhood when my mom told me that she was worried that I would be born early and “ruin Christmas”, was simply that I was tired of my birth being a problem. I don’t think people realize how hard it is to hear others complain about how hard these birthdays-near-the-holiday are for them. We get it. It’s hard for us too.
Of course, it’s not really like that. TheMAN has done a lot to make plans for a special day. BoBo and YaYa have set aside plans for the day to spend it with me — however I want. So tonight, on this last day as a forty-something, I sip on a glass of wine and smile thinking about how cool it will be to show my boys my favorite local hiking trail. Of course, theMAN will be part of this special day too.
What more can I ask for?