Friday Happiness :: Birthday Edition

Tomorrow is my birthday. My forty-second.

I was going to write a witty (I wish!) post about what I want for my birthday. I still might, so you're not out of the woods, yet.

But in looking around for a picture, I found this one, and so I'm going to bore you with a story, instead.

Here I am, at the bar at Buffet de la Gare, the most perfect example of a French bistro that can be found in these parts, without having to take a plane(or a train, for that matter.) I am here to celebrate my birthday, with girlfriends, earlier this month.

But I have to tell you, that the first time I came here still holds such resonance in my heart, that I can not return without being steeped in love and family and memory.

I was turning thirty. I had a newborn baby, my first. I had moved back to the suburbs from the city, was learning how to be a mother, re-learning how to be a daughter who now needed a grandmother for her own daughter, and was re-folding my self into the family I had inevitably pushed away from. When I write those words, I am envisioning the movement a swimmer makes, when they push off the wall after a dizzying flip turn, to shoot themselves back in the direction from which they just came.

My brother Glenn and his wife had arranged a party to celebrate. Me. They arranged it all, as they have so many things for me, since they met and fell in love when I was all of five years old. If I ever needed somewhere to look for an example of what love is, other than my own parents, I have never needed to look far.

That birthday at Buffet de la Gare was memorable for so many reasons. It was the first time I had ever left my baby with a sitter. It was a glamorous night with red wine, and cassoulet, and creme brulee, and a dark brown silk nightgown wrapped up in tissue paper. I felt, for perhaps the first time, like a grown-up. Someone who would be brought out to such a place for their birthday. Someone who would be given a negligee. Someone who needed a sitter.

But I mostly remember this: in the car on the way to the restaurant, my brother asked me what I had thought my life would be like at thirty. And if I was happy now that I was there.

And my answer? I had always hoped that by thirty I would be married, and have a house, and have a baby. So...yes! Was.I.ever.happy.

Well...

If you've been paying attention here, you may know that my answer was not the end of my story. But it wasn't not the truth, either. Maybe what I know now, twelve years later, is that the question my brother asked, can't be answered easily, completely, or immediately. That there is a sliding scale that has to take into account what you know you want, know you need, and what you are capable of being, before you can spit out a final rating on what's what.

So, there I sat in that restaurant again, last week. They've done some renovations and the new owners are back. It looks lovely.

I didn't need a sitter this time; I had my husband at home, drawing cartoons and shepherding six girls through their bedtime routines. My newborn was doing seventh grade math, and my third newborn was asleep in a big-girl bed. I was with friends the likes of which I never had when I was an isolated new mother, living in the back-of-beyond, and trying to figure it all out. I wasn't that thirty year old anymore, but I didn't feel all that much older, either.

So, what do I have to say now, on the eve of my forty second birthday?

Ask me again, Glenn. Ask me again.

More tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
tt

Friday Happiness

Another Friday, already? This one came up quick.

Another poker night for Tim, tonight, but no movie night for me, this time. It's getting down to the wire, gift-wise, and I've much to do. Although, I could spend the whole night organizing photos on our computer and still not get Thing One done.

Another party this weekend; this time with friends we don't see very often, at a house that will forever feel a little bit like home, so I'm much looking forward to it.

And Sunday; perhaps the last slow, easy, nothing-much-to-do Sunday for a while. So I am, most of all, ready for that.

Another subject:

The other day I referred to myself here as "girl", and that's been flitting around in my brain since. Because we all know how old I am (forty-one). And I'm way closer -seriously- to being a grandmother, than I am to being a teenager, numbers-wise. (We've got three 12-year-olds. At least one is likely to come up with a baby at some point in the next 22 years, right?)

So, I asked myself Satchel Paige's question: "How old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?"

And you know what I came up with?

Twenty-six.

I'm off by fifteen years. Fifteen. But that's my honest answer. Just on the border of "girl", maybe with the hood ornament over the line, even. But there you have it.

And another thing? I was thinking about what I might be wearing to this party this weekend, and I realized that I have in mind something like the perky little ingenue out of Amelie, and will definitely end up with something more in the style of, say...Olive Oyl.

Then again, what do I think I am? Twenty-six?

What's your answer? How old would you be, if you didn't know how old you were?

Enjoy your weekend. More tomorrow.

tt