It's My Birthday and I'll Cry if I Want To...

Fortunately, I don't want to cry!  So you're off the hook - no comfort necessary!  Though a few birthday wishes might be lovely (hint hint)!!

So let's just deal with the question you have on your mind:  How old am I?  Well, the answer should be no big surprise given that for the past year, my blog profile has advertised that I was forty-three.  But just to be clear, I'm forty-four today...or I will be at about 11:35 tonight.  I know that a lot of people are sensitive about revealing their (real) age, and I occasionally get myself into trouble by asking a little too freely how old someone is...only to have a moment of insight as I see the reaction in that person's face, and realize, too late, that maybe I shouldn't have asked that question.

By contrast, I'm not one to hide my age.  After all, whether I say it out loud or not, the reality doesn't change - I am who I am, and I am as old as I am.  It's not a big deal to me.

It is a big deal to me that certain things I'd wished to happen by this age haven't happened.  Most notably, I had certainly envisioned that my family would be complete by this point in my life.  And yet, here I am, still hoping that we receive a referral that will enable us to move on to the next chapter in our lives.  Oh, how I long for that day to happen before too much more time passes.  When we started the adoption process, I was thirty-six years old.  Eight years later, we're still at it...though of course, in the interim, we were also fortunate enough to have brought our miracle boy into existence.

I wondered how I'd feel today.  Geoff has been out of town all week, and returns tomorrow morning.  It's the first time we've ever missed being together on one of our birthdays.  But you know what?  I'm really ok with it.  Ever since Matthew came along, my birthday doesn't feel all that important any more - I just don't care about it in the same way that I used to.  I don't need much on the actual day:  a card is mandatory, true, as is a cake (which I understand Geoff has stored away in the freezer for Matthew and me to enjoy later on today!); but gifts are purely optional these days.  I'm perfectly happy if Geoff has made the effort to do something like buy me a book that I'd like to read.  In fact, this year, he and I decided to do something a little different for our birthdays.  Because our birthdays are less than two weeks apart, we decided this year that we'd skip the usual gift-giving and, instead, buy theatre tickets for a performances this fall...that way, we get out for an evening together (which happens rarely), and we have something to look forward to.

Matthew's been singing me Happy Birthday all week already, and we had a gargantuan birthday-related ice cream celebration with my niece on the long weekend at the cottage, so I'm already feeling well celebrated.  Oh, and my sister is in NYC right now and hoping to scour China Town there for a purse to bring back for my birthday (I'm secretly hoping for something in a bright green, but I feel confident more confident in her taste than in my own, so I'm sure it'll be great no matter what colour it is).  Geoff left me a card earlier in the week that I shall soon go and open.  I have a friend coming over to visit with her two kids this morning.  And tonight, to celebrate 'officially,' Matthew and I are heading out to dinner with a dear friend that I've known since we were both twelve; that will be a lovely ending to a day that has already started well.   Happy Birthday to Me!!


* My goodness, I do feel celebrated - thank you for all of the birthday wishes!!!