Happy Birthday To Me

I was exhausted when I went to bed last night, but I lay awake with my mind racing. So, I greeted 33 alone in the dark with my thoughts.

Of course I'm not thrilled to get older - who is? But this time it's different. This time I have a year to look back on with pride of accomplishment, and an even better year to look forward to. For the first time since I became an adult, I don't feel like my life has been wasted and stolen from me by my traitorous health and weak body. For the first time I feel strong and happy and satisfied with where I'm at. And mature enough to realize the source of that satisfaction, at least in part, is the wisdom that comes with age.

Aside from the general dread of getting older, I've always hated my birthday. December 28th. Not much worse that a birthday smack in the middle of the holidays. As a kid, the worst part is you only get one present. Merry Birthday is not amusing to a child when she knows her brothers are going to clean up with twice as many gifts in the spring. Even if you do get a separate birthday gift it’s wrapped in leftover Christmas paper. And it’s right before New Year’s, so as an adult nobody wants to go out with you to celebrate because they’re going out in 3 days anyway.

Most of my life nobody even knew when it was. At my grade school, the big thing was for a birthday kid’s mom to bring cupcakes for the class. Couldn’t exactly do that over Christmas break, could I? So, I got pretty used to being persona non grata on my birthday. I was married for a couple of years before even my husband had the date nailed down. Seriously! He still pauses to think about it if you ask him.

I always tried to be cheerful about it, especially since birthdays generally meant squat in my family anyway. They were barely acknowledged – I couldn’t even tell you when my mom’s is, and that’s after years of asking her repeatedly. She couldn’t tell you when her mom’s is either. Mom doesn’t even call me on mine. You get used to it.

But deep down, I wished that I’d had birthday parties as a kid, and big drunken bar nights in college like everybody else. There have been a few memorable exceptions, like my senior year in college we were on a marching band trip for a bowl game, and my roomies figured out it was my birthday. We were in the middle of nowhere with no transportation so they stole me a poinsettia from the hotel lobby – I just about cried it was so sweet. And my wonderful husband, although he was initially a bit fuzzy on the when of things, did catch on to this concept pretty quick and made it his mission to make my birthday special.

So, even when we’re so broke we agreed to not exchange Christmas gifts this year, he insisted on getting me a birthday present.

Since he’s the king of not taking even the most blatant hints, he often asks me to send him a picture of what I want so he can’t possibly screw it up. (I think this might have started when I found the engagement ring I wanted and made it the wallpaper on his computer.) I must say this year was the easiest ever to answer that question, now that I have a nice long wish list of tri gear. I told him all he had to do was walk into the running store and ask for the pink Timex Ironman running watch. Nope, he wants a picture with vital stats. I gave up years ago complaining that I’d rather be surprised… because I learned early on that surprises are generally of the “that’s what you got me?!” variety.


So, guess what I got for my birthday? My first lap watch! (Were you surprised? I was surprised.) And wasn’t it sweet of him to remember that I wanted the pink one, to match my dream bike? I can’t wait to try it out on my next workout! I’m a big wimp about the cold, so even though it’s ten different kinds of ridiculous, I’ll be wearing it on the treadmill tomorrow.