I recently watched a Portlandia episode where one of the
main characters was making a big deal about her birthday. She was going over
the top to celebrate it in all the ways that would delight her. She was drawing
a lot of attention to herself and really wanting folks
to make a big fuss over her. While watching this it drew me into my own birthday
reflections. What an interesting moment in time. The moment you were born into
the world. I thought how much I want
friends and family to make a fuss over me. How those early baby feelings of
being wanted, loved and cooed over come up on this date every year.
At different times I have had amazing birthdays. As a child
in Connecticut my mom was skilled at making a really fun home made birthday
party based upon my interests at the time. I recall a safari petting zoo theme
one year, a boat ride through the Thimble Islands when I was 12 with all my
friends, and the traditional cake and play outside when I was little. I went
through a lull of big celebrations as a teen. It was hard to figure out how to
get together my friends who lived in many different states. One year, my 16th,
was the exception. My friends and mom all met up in New York City and went to
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and tramped around Soho and Greenwich Village,
owning the city. Experiencing NYC with my loved ones felt like the best celebration
to me.
In my early 20’s, while living in Seattle, I had a lovely
friend who was great at coming up with big celebrations for me. When I turned
24 I gave her a list of experiences I wanted to have, pet a llama, have a
picnic, go to a hot spring. She made a party out of us going on this big
adventure into the mountains to a hot spring ending in a llama farm. I also
recall being pregnant with Sweetpea and having a Portland birthday adventure. That
birthday included a picnic in a park and dancing to Bollywood at a club that
night with my big pregnant belly on the dance floor. I felt free.
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| By Jessica Foster |
Post kids it has been harder to celebrate me. Last night at
my birthday potluck as I waited to gather everyone together, the children at
the party had their sticky fingers in the ice cream melting around the second
layer of my cake. I stood my ground and said “Birthday girl gets the first
piece!” but they swarmed like hounds once that piece was cut. Not quite like my
birthday the previous year when I turned 35. The adult celebration I got to
have when my in laws took the kids. We had wine, viewed my old art school
films, folks showed up at 10 pm and the party lingered to midnight. I got a
taste of my life pre-children and it was sweet.
As a parent I savor any alone time I get. I am a combo of
introvert and extrovert and I find the best way to balance this is by having a
good chunk of alone time. As my first birthday present of this year I gifted my
self some time sans kids to write at a café. I used these few hours of alone
time to contemplate what it means to be in my mid-30s. My 36th year feels
like my adult prime. I think that your 30’s and 40’s are a great time to take
charge of the big things you want to do in your life and have the history,
clarity and experience of your 20’s to back up your plans. If anything I feel
more relaxed, as I get older, that time is expansive and I can have it all just
slowly and not all at once.
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| By Ian Roberts |
I am evaluating my life from this new perspective. I find
that growing older just makes life better. I am more focused on my goals and
less stressed about getting it all done. There was an adrenaline that ran through
my 20’s to get everything done and fast. I now have the perspective of time on
this planet, time for many things to happen, many wheels to turn, and many
projects to develop. My husband has gifted me this ease to some extent. Though
he is a master of juggling multiple things as am I, he does not feel that it
all needs to happen in a quick way. I see my life unfolding with many delicious
treats, at the moment I am in the thick of parenting and starting a business, but
I know that I will not always be in this stage of life.
In some ways I can’t wait to get older.
I imagine I will be hitting my stride in all that I am doing and feeling truly in charge
of my life. Maybe at that point parenting will become more of a collaboration
with my children where I get to guide them more and sideways teach instead of doing
so much to keep them afloat. It is good to think into the future and remember
that I will reclaim my birthdays again someday and make them all about me. For
now I am surrounded by the needy love of young people and it is still sweet. I love all the homemade gifts, cards, making
messy breakfast omelets, drinking sips of coffee in between
threading needles for small felt toys. But
I also enjoy sneaking away to enjoy an adult celebration on my own in a café
with big windows and small minty, lavender sparkling drinks.
