On birthdays
I'm not crazy about Sundays. Never have been. As the stopper at the end of the week, Sunday tends to collect the flotsam: laundry, cleaning, ironing, other chores I've successfully put off during the week, and, later, the inevitable insomnia from the conflict between my work schedule and what my brain insists are civilized hours to be awake. This one's sweetened by having Monday off -- actually, as a sop to my GRE panic, I'm taking the whole week off -- but, still: no good ever came from a birthday that fell on a Sunday.
Thirty-seven was rough. It seemed like a last-gasp milestone -- y'know, the big finale for facial collagen and a discernible waistline; an agreeable sweet spot where the descending curve of comeliness meets the ascending curves of personal puissance and self-acceptance. Except it wasn't.
Last year, K and I got into a huge fight, in which, unusually for us -- we typically bicker with admirable restraint and civility -- ugly thing were said, and -- even more rare -- he broke up with me. On my birthday. My 37th, my time for self-realization and actualization.
It should've been an awesome day. We were in Berlin, my favoritest city (sorry NY; I'll make it up to you). But stepping outside was like being rubbed down by wet steel wool that'd been stored in the freezer. And the sky wasn't just gray; it drained the color out of everything beneath it. And, while out walking despite the environmental hazards, we chanced upon the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe...and decided to go in (in retrospect: what the hell was I thinking?). And then, yes, the big fight when it slowly began to dawn on me that K had made absolutely zero, zilch, nada plans for the day, despite it having been a point of contention two years prior, in Spain (it wasn't an issue the year immediately before, only because we'd just arrived in India and found ourselves on that day in Goa, with both of us gravely stricken with food poisoning, engaged in intense private negotiation with personal deities to please not let this be the end. Funny how that was one of my better birthdays.)
Finally, determined to salvage something of the day, I decided to try out an absinthe bar, and K, after some discussion, came along. Absinthe didn't make our hearts grow fonder. It left us in a state of pleasureless torpor and apathy (really: people drink this stuff why?), slumped on opposite ends of a peeling naugahyde couch shoved into a narrow corridor in a smoky bar, while strangers all around us (who'd presumably opted for the beer) were in a state of high merriment. Once the barman realized we weren't in any state to be ordering anything more, he kicked us out, with great teutonic efficiency, back into the iceblasting wind. Happy birthday to me.
Thus, with that history as preamble, I write this on the morning of my thirty-eighth with more than a little trepidation and a large desire to crawl back under the duvet. But you gotta figure: it can only get better from here, right?
Thirty-seven was rough. It seemed like a last-gasp milestone -- y'know, the big finale for facial collagen and a discernible waistline; an agreeable sweet spot where the descending curve of comeliness meets the ascending curves of personal puissance and self-acceptance. Except it wasn't.
Last year, K and I got into a huge fight, in which, unusually for us -- we typically bicker with admirable restraint and civility -- ugly thing were said, and -- even more rare -- he broke up with me. On my birthday. My 37th, my time for self-realization and actualization.
It should've been an awesome day. We were in Berlin, my favoritest city (sorry NY; I'll make it up to you). But stepping outside was like being rubbed down by wet steel wool that'd been stored in the freezer. And the sky wasn't just gray; it drained the color out of everything beneath it. And, while out walking despite the environmental hazards, we chanced upon the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe...and decided to go in (in retrospect: what the hell was I thinking?). And then, yes, the big fight when it slowly began to dawn on me that K had made absolutely zero, zilch, nada plans for the day, despite it having been a point of contention two years prior, in Spain (it wasn't an issue the year immediately before, only because we'd just arrived in India and found ourselves on that day in Goa, with both of us gravely stricken with food poisoning, engaged in intense private negotiation with personal deities to please not let this be the end. Funny how that was one of my better birthdays.)
Finally, determined to salvage something of the day, I decided to try out an absinthe bar, and K, after some discussion, came along. Absinthe didn't make our hearts grow fonder. It left us in a state of pleasureless torpor and apathy (really: people drink this stuff why?), slumped on opposite ends of a peeling naugahyde couch shoved into a narrow corridor in a smoky bar, while strangers all around us (who'd presumably opted for the beer) were in a state of high merriment. Once the barman realized we weren't in any state to be ordering anything more, he kicked us out, with great teutonic efficiency, back into the iceblasting wind. Happy birthday to me.
Thus, with that history as preamble, I write this on the morning of my thirty-eighth with more than a little trepidation and a large desire to crawl back under the duvet. But you gotta figure: it can only get better from here, right?
3 Comments:
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David Schraub said...
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- 2:13 AM
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Anonymous said...
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- 6:18 AM
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Anonymous said...
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- 3:17 AM
Post a CommentI'm really sorry to hear that. I once had a girlfriend break-up with me over Fourth of July fireworks.
For what it's worth, happy birthday!
Yes, indeed ... happy birthday!
So --
I have always, always, not liked my birthday, for reasons far too personal and boring to go into here. Suffice to say, on those occasions when people find out about my birthday, and ask me how I'm going to spend it, I always say that I am doing nothing--that's my clear preference. When pushed as to why I don't celebrate such a joyous occasion, I respond by saying my birthday generally reminds me of X years of unmitigated failure (47 so far).
One of my toughest years was 39. Once I turned 39, I told everyone I was 40, just to get used to the idea. Being 40 was so awful, mainly because it felt like I had not done anything that really exciting. I remember an episode of the television show 'Scrubs' on a similar theme. My point is, I was so miserable being 40 when I was 39, that by the time I turned 40, it wasn't that big of deal. But then again, when I turned 40, that was when my second marriage went straight to hell--so perhaps I had other fish getting fried.
Still--it was when 40, that was when I trained for and ran my first marathon. Those marathons, the idea that I have finished them--on many days, that's what keeps me going. Everything else I've done, I can find some excuse to dismiss as trivial and unimportant. But not my marathons.
Regardless of what all that hits at you, my Divine Ms. E--Find something that you do and/or have done that reinforces that you're a winner. Maybe we can make the Rangoon International Peace and Freedom Marathon a two day event: Running one day, and walking the second with treking poles. The marathons I've walked have been much tougher than the ones I jogged...But given you're stellar performance on the Great Wall, I think you've really got a marathon in you. I know I need to get back on the road here....And with my getting kicked out of my classes, I should have more time for training.
But I suppose we digress.
I remain--
Thinking warm thoughts in your direction, you who was born in the Nixon Administration.
Bill Abendroth
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