I'm not going to say I'm old, but I am going to say that I turned 21 eleven years ago, and that seems... impossible.
I mean, look at that kid. She's a baby. She has no idea what the hell is in store for her. I have to fight the desire to shake her, quite frankly.
But, a lot (and I mean a lot) of time has passed since then. I got married, got divorced, and am about to get married again (because I'm apparently a very, very serial monogamist).
Eleven years is a long time, and now?
I'm 32.
It's not ancient, but it's by no means young. And I'm fine with that. I like my age, I like myself, and I like my life. I like what I've accomplished, particularly over the past few years.
And I (still) like my birthday.
Last year was probably one of my favorite birthdays ever. I had a fabulous, low-key party and spent my entire birthday day with Mark.
This year? Things were a little different.
For starters, my family met Mark's family for the first time for a birthday lunch. It... well, let's just say it did not quite go as planned, and leave it at that. That lovely experience was followed up by seeing Trolls with Mark, Kaylee, and my parents. (Cute movie, bit too long.)
Then I went home to get ready for the Prohibition Party, a long-standing event that my friends Jessica and Chris throw every year. This year it happened to fall on my birthday, so Jessica got me a cake.
And by cake, I mean the best cake ever.
Seriously.
Being the birthday girl, I decided to wear something a bit fancier than my usual costume of a slip and a see-through lace dress. So I crossed my fingers and slipped into my great-grandma's wedding dress. And it actually fit... kindof... if you ignore the fact that it doesn't fasten up on the side. At all.
Not one to give up so easy, I pinned together one of my furs into a makeshift sleeve, pinned that to the dress, threw on some pearls, grabbed my champagne, and managed to socialize for almost four hours.
Sunday was birthday brunch, followed by a well-earned food coma and Kaylee wanting to come over and give me my birthday card, followed by the official start of packing up the apartment I've lived in for seven years.
And then on Monday Mark had the day off for our now-traditional birthday adventures.
Which... also didn't quite work out the way we planned, as the Contemporary Art Museum was closed. So? We walked around IKEA (which is basically some strange form of modern art itself), had lunch at Crown Candy Kitchen, and later had buffet.
It obviously wasn't the most remarkable of birthday adventures, but I'm not complaining. We're both under a lot of stress right now with preparing for both a move and a wedding, so a low-key and unremarkable day was probably more along the lines of what we needed. And all I really wanted to do was spend the day together (and get a BLT at Crown Candy Kitchen), so mission: accomplished.
32 definitely was not a bad birthday, in spite of all the reasons it could very well have been. I got to dress up, have amazing cake, and go home whenever I was ready. I got to spend a day with the love of my life. I got brunch and so many lovely and thoughtful presents from my lovely and thoughtful friends.
I'm a little older, a little wiser (I hope), and about to embark on one hell of a life adventure with a guy who makes me feel like it's always my birthday.
I could do worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment