Birthday Overload.

My birthday today marks the fourth we five have celebrated in the past twelve days.  Only Matthew's birthday is an outlier - he gets his own special day in spring time.  Also during the final days of July and the first few of August, we celebrate my Dad's, my Mom's and my Brother-in-law's birthdays.  It's a lot of partying over the course of a mere twelve days!

By the time we got to my birthday today, I felt frankly tired of celebrating, tired of birthday cakes, and was reading to bring the celebrations to an end for another year!  Geoff asked me a few days ago how I wanted to spend my birthday and I really had only one thing in mind:  I wanted two or three hours at some point in the day to be by myself - either reading a book in bed, or enjoying a bath in our unused soaker tub, or both.

Getting gray hair, getting one year older, doesn't worry me a whole lot anymore.  Yes, I still highlight my hair a couple of times a year, but I specifically tell my stylist to leave my gray hairs alone - I see each of them as a testament to having lived life!  I want my birthday to be acknowledged by the few who are nearest and dearest, but that's about it - an acknowledgement.  When I told Geoff that I just wanted a bit of time to myself today, I was merely grateful that my birthday could be used as a convenient and legitimate excuse upon which to make such a request.

I went through some kind of mid-life crisis when I was about forty, and did a lot of soul-searching during that time.  That was horrible.

But now I'm just glad to be here for another year, glad that my kids have a mother, glad that I am a mother, grateful for family and friends near and far, and looking forward to a couple of hours in bed with my book this afternoon!