My 35th Birthday

This is the morning of my 35^th birthday. I wish I could say I feel celebratory but I am more the melancholic birthday person. I don’t know if this change happens with age nor can I remember when this happened but I tend to reflect on the very recent past and then immediately to my youth, particularly the time when I lived mostly with my grandparents. This morning I miss my grandmother most of all, and immediately I was pulled into the emotions I experienced as a child, as though I was watching myself with her from above. I pictured us in the many times I sat at her small kitchen table talking with her while she cooked a vegetable soup. I heard her voice, so distinctly still. The intonation of her speech still resonates so presently lingering in the way in which she said my name. I wish most of all today to be with her, to have her be present, to meet my husband, my son, her great-grandchild. But most of all, just to sit with me, even though I know she couldn’t sit still without doing something around the house.

Today I cannot believe how time has flown. How disconnected I feel from the teenager I once was. All of those fun adventures who make me part of what I am today seem so different than the mother, wife, professional I now I am. And yet, I still feel like a little girl inside. Sometimes seeking refuge in the comforting thoughts of my childhood. The security, warmth and love those memories bring back every time I need them. Finding music to further bring on the feelings I needed to feel I turned on the iPod and immediately I was drawn for some reason to Carly Simon’s “Coming Around Again.” Then immediately I had to play the recently deceased, Mercedes Sosa, particularly the song, “Todo Camia,” as everything does change. And yes, at this point I felt quite awful and like a person on top of the CN Tower in Toronto looking down and feeling so incredibly small in the life’s great scheme.

I try to think of what would make me feel more celebratory, if indeed there is something or if my personality and the fact that I’ve worked all week, am working today and will be working tomorrow could make me feel like a glass of Champagne.

So instead of going to dinner, I opted for what I really wanted to do, stay home with my boys, have my parents come over. Jay ordered Pizza for everyone and then he picked up Sushi for me. Had a lovely Navarro Correa Malbec bottle my dad brought and the whole while, I was in my comfy pajamas. Nothing could top that. Easy night, shower, bed, and sleep.