Take Back the Birthday a Success

Take Back the Birthday went exceedingly well, if I do say so myself. A few friends, red wine (including a bottle of Irony Pinot Noir—I’m keeping that bottle forever), good cheeses and other sundries, music, and Apples to Apples (a kickass game) make for a wonderful midweek impromptu birthday celebration. Had Take Back the Birthday been on a weekend night, I probably would have gone for a blowout, but perhaps it was a good thing to wade back into being happy about having a birthday. Good times.

The only thing that gives me pause about the whole birthday thing is that I’m now officially in my mid-thirties. There’s nothing “early” about thirty-four. I have one more year of the snappy twenty-eight to thirty-four age bracket, and then the long, slow slide begins.

The thought of aging has always freaked me out. My mother caught me weeping on the porch when I was three, and when she asked me what was wrong, I cried, “I don’t want my little beedes to get big! I want to stay a kid forever!” (This is one of her favorite stories to tell about me. It gets laughs.) Time passed, and I got over my “beedes” getting big, but the essential Peter Pan feeling has remained with me. I loved being young. I loved all the possibility. The choices. Thinking about all those potential paths disappearing breaks my heart.

Still, though the thought of thirty-four freaks me out a bit, I don’t feel so bad today. Maybe I’m finally figuring out that most of our limits are those we place on ourselves. I don’t know. It’s something to think about. But first I'm going to go outside and play. It's beautiful out.