GirlFriday Week

I do love birthdays.  I love them in a way a grown woman shouldn't.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's because I'm not a person who requires a lot of attention from my friends (I make up for this by demanding an unhealthy amount of attention from my parents), and once a year, I enjoy being the central reason for letting the good times role.  So much so, that I don't really have a birthday.  I have birthweek.  I know that sounds sort of preposterous, but somehow it works and everyone loves it.

I really enjoy PG activities, and GirlFriday Week is always chock full of them-- board games, karaoke, painting pottery (a super-fun outing organized by GirlWednesday when I turned 20), pizza and cake.  Very sadly, I haven't had a GirlFriday Week since I moved away from my friends.  I don't mind too much.  My husband treats me very well.  But I can't help but be reminded about how much I miss my friends every time I get a year older.

I love to hear from all of my old friends on my birthday, but it's not crucial to me.  I don't evaluate someone's friendship based on whether and to what extent they remember and celebrate my birthday.  Especially with the handy dandy Facebook reminder, it's not really an indication of someone's amount of care for you, or even their level of thoughtfulness and class. And sometimes it can even feel like people are remembering and contacting you sort of just for show.  That doesn't mean they care about you more than your closest cousin who plum forgot.

It's nice to hear from folks, but people are busy.  They have a lot of crap going on, and just because they don't call, email or send a gift does not mean they don't care about you.  I think the most important thing is that you hear from your parents, and that the people who you hang out with regularly or work with do something sweet for you.  And if you don't tell anyone it's your birthday, you can't get upset that they don't know it!

In school, I was on the young side for my grade.  I always liked that.  Even though I knew it didn't mean much, it felt good that I was accomplishing things slightly sooner than most.  Well, I must have really liked how it felt, because I went on to accomplish a lot of things at ridiculously young ages.  But now I'm in my late 20's and I'm losing most of that novelty.  My peers have definitely caught up if not exceeded me, and now it's like, who cares that I hit milestones at young ages-- we all ended up hitting them eventually.  In that sense, it's a little hard getting older, because I'm losing that "young and accomplished" feeling that was once so intense every time I blew out the candles.  

Still, I don't mind getting older.  Mostly because I'm so happy with where I am as a person.  I'm sure it's dangerous to think even that.  After all, life doesn't always go as planned, and I will probably reach birthdays at which everything is not so rosy.  I haven't previously thought about birthdays so reflectively, as a time to be gracious and appreciative.  But perhaps I should.  From now on, in addition to arcade games and ice cream sundaes, GirlFriday Week will be about being thankful for everything in my life.  It might not be perfect, but it's GirlFriday.  And it's pretty fabulous.

P.S. Happy Birthday, BrotherFriday.

It All Started With a Fishing Pole...

Over the last few years my opinion has begun to change about birthdays – particularly regarding the birthday gift. When I first met my now-husband he surprised me that first summer with a fishing pole as my birthday present. I remember quietly chuckling to myself and thinking this was probably one of those gifts that men are infamous for giving. You know - the ones that they would have rather gotten themselves i.e. a leafblower for Christmas or cool phone accessories for Valentines Day. But, when he gave this gift to me he said that this was going to be one of the greatest gifts I had ever gotten. Why? Because we were going to create endless memories from this one gift. And he was absolutely right.

I had never been much of an angler before that summer. But my then-boyfriend (now-husband) spent countless patient hours showing me the tricks and techniques necessary to be successful at stream casting. I fell in love with the sport. We went fishing in the Boise River about 80 of the 90 summer days that year. Both of us would get off work, quickly change clothes, head to our secret spots on the River, and fish until dusk. We would wake up early each day and make bets on who was going to catch the most fish, who was going to catch the first fish, who was going to catch the biggest fish, etc. The grand prize for the winner of these bets would always be a snow cone – flavor of the winner’s choice. To this day this is an activity that we both love, and most importantly, it is an opportunity for us to spend a lot of quality time with one another.

That birthday gift five years ago was the starting point for a tradition we challenged ourselves to uphold. The challenge: each year we will only give one another birthday gifts that you can create a memory with. The gift does not have to cost a lot of money (and in fact, shouldn’t cost a lot) but it has to be something that you can physically do that will be memorable. This is actually a lot harder than you would originally think. It is somewhat easy to get someone a watch, new cologne, or a nice polo shirt. It is a lot more difficult to come up with a gift that can create a memory. Since making this pact, we have gone on countless memorable trips, and have received and given many other personal memory-creating gifts to one another.

It has changed the way I look at birthday gifts. No longer do I fret over, “What is he going to get me” or “I don’t know what to get him”. We don’t give gifts of large value but they have a lot of significant meaning and are much more enjoyable to give and receive. I have since started to implement this gift-giving philosophy with my friends and family and have received much greater responses than I have ever seen before!

I Know I'll Often Stop and Think About Them

Unseasonable warmth in February- I shed my wool coat for my trench, a scarf. I rested my head back against the seat cushion as the train waited in the station with doors open while a steady breeze blew through my hair. The air was cool with warm undertones. A preview of an almost spring. I sat on the train in the eastern Long Island station and waited for the doors to close and the train to take off. And as I waited, I didn't fail to notice a ghost of my younger self ride her bike quickly along the side of the tracks, in the gray gravel. Her bike skid a little, she stuck her legs straight out, opened her eyes and mouth wide in anticipation of the tumble. But it didn't happen that way. The bike dipped and she sloppily dug one sneaker into the ground and caught her balance. She shrieked happily, pushed off and pedalled furiously away.

I remember how my sweatpants felt back then- pants I was allowed to get dirty when I rode my bike everywhere- they were baggy and had elastic at the ankles. I wore them with big white socks and sneakers. I had a "1986 World Series- Mets" sweatshirt. Or a puffy windbreaker. I always wore pony tails or french braids that, after a few minutes in the wind, my curls would fall out of. My tongue was usually purple or blue from a treat from the ice cream truck.

So I looked like a maniac... My bike was pink. I was a runny-nosed mess most of the time. But as a kid nothing was better than than the first signs of spring. In Queens where I grew up it meant running outside at even the faintest hint of warmth and turning over all the bricks, in the small garden we shared with my grandparents, to look for "rollie pollies" or lady bugs. My sister and I would dust our bikes off and pull them out of the garage and race along the train tracks behind our apartment. It was cold, but sort-of warm.

This old memory made me feel so comfortable I could have fallen asleep right there on the train. And I love the way weather holds such a memory for me- in a way no diary ever could.

Here's a great line from the book I'm reading, about a girl who tried to hold onto her memories so tightly, but after much reflection thought better of it:
"I was beginning to understand, and with the touch of an imaginary wand I released my prisoners, flung open the dining room doors and sent them on their way, let them go, scattered them like the seeds of a dandelion that one blows into the wind on a warm summer's day."

I kind of like the way these vivid memories come and go like an unseasonably warm winter afternoon. I can't summon that exact feeling just any time of the year, it's a special day that I remember these things. The memories aren't prisoners, they're visitors.

The train doors closed and we began to chug along. I couldn't shake that dusky, almost-spring feeling-- I was glad for it though. I didn't want to lose it like deja vu that slips away before you can figure out why it's so familiar. I wanted to hold onto it.

Almost spring used to make me sad, fill me with a sense of hopelessness. In college a boy broke my heart in the almost-spring. We sat on the pavement outside the dorm on one of our last days together and I watched as the girl I knew he'd started to like instead of me crossed the street in front of us. There was nothing I could do to stop the situation. So instead I went for an endless walk around the city in a big sweater and a scarf.

I don't remember what I thought about as I walked around the city until the evening turned too cold and windy that I had to return home. But I do remember exactly what it felt like that day, to put my hands on the cool sidewalk and push myself to my feet, before leaving him.

Later in life this time of year brings me right to Italy. When the air was cool and warm at once, I was in Florence. I remember the reddish tiles of the Tuscan roofs, the off-white walls, the over sized doors and the dark green shutters. The small, sleepy city with a river through it, the wide piazzas, the rising sun glinting on the cap of the Duomo... being alone in Europe- to call Europe home for a few months.... Almost spring in Europe smells like spinach quiche in the oven, sounds like a cool breeze rattling a tall row of cypress trees, smells like the shopkeeper's perfume, looks like the lights of shops along the downtown cobblestone streets.

My train kept on rolling past the familiar towns. I was headed back into the city. A place where I've spent, and continue to spend, many almost-springs.

The playground in Middle Village where my sister and I would roller skate the slopey perimeter... The promise of school almost being over before summer break... Going to church for Easter and noticing the tulips... Exploring an old, abandoned house with my best friend... Moving into my first nice apartment and sitting on the roof-deck to finish my favorite book while the sun set over Manhattan... Going for a comfortable jog along the Hudson River and past the doggie park...

I love to reflect and watch my memories grow up as I do, each year a different age. Seasons like birthdays taking me through life. I like to imagine what future memories I might create when the thermometer hits 50 in coming Februaries.

I am a planner.

I chart out my life with to-do lists and post-it notes scattered on my desk, my computer desk-top, and my blackberry task list. For every large objective, I think in process-oriented task increments.

What, you may ask, does this have to do at all with birthdays?

Simple. Birthdays are the ultimate increment by which to measure progress towards and success in reaching precisely such goals. At least for the first twenty-five years of my life, that was the case.

When I was truly little, the goals were equally small- age five- teach myself cursive using my brother's handwriting homework; age seven- get ears pierced; age ten- have my first big birthday party with all my friends.

Once I hit the teenage years, the birthdays obviously carried with them the more “serious” milestones: thirteen- kiss my first boy; fourteen- start highschool; fifteen- get first real job; sixteen- get driver’s license; seventeen- get senior driver’s license.

And then came eighteen.

Eighteen for me was when birthdays first got serious. At eighteen, I became an adult. And I don’t mean in the legal sense, the voting sense, or the able-to-buy-cigarettes-and-porn sense. I mean that my eighteenth birthday was the first birthday on which I thought about birthdays in terms of what I had accomplished, or what I needed to accomplish in the coming year. With an early April birthday, I had the pleasure of receiving college acceptance and rejection letters for my birthday. Only the thing was, all the good letters came the day BEFORE my birthday, and the skinny, ominous envelopes arrived the day OF my birthday. Oh cruel world. At eighteen, I wasn’t focused on what illicit transgression I would partake in—I was focused on the fact that my “dream” college had delivered the big N-O on my first day of adult hood. Happy Birthday, welcome to reality, sucker.

At eighteen, I was focused keenly on my future. My chart looked something like this: Nineteen- pick college major; twenty- land kick-ass summer internship; twenty-one- take LSAT and begin applying to law schools; twenty-two- get in to top 15 law school, graduate summa cum laude, and move in with boyfriend, soon to be fiancé. Move to big city—live fancy “adult” life together; marry during final year of law school, and start high-paying career, all by the age of twenty-five.

Somewhere between twenty-one and twenty-five the train derailed. I didn’t get in to the big city school of my choosing, and my boyfriend didn’t even follow, let alone become my fiancé. I tacked on another year of graduate school, and birthdays started to send me into a serious funk in which I just wanted the day to come and go as quickly as possible so I could avoid the introspection. At twenty five I found myself single, lonely, and trying desperately to figure out what direction I was headed in life. Sure, I was only single for a little while, and I had a job all lined up for the summer that would likely lead to a final job offer, but I felt as though by failing to satisfy the artificial timeline I had set out for myself I was in some way inadequate as a person. I had failed.

Twenty-five: Grow up.

Fortunately for me, I turned twenty-five in the company of a few friends who were older and wiser than me whose opinions I respected and who tended to succeed in talking me out of fits of irrationality. Rather than placate my whining diatribe on why I was a failure in not checking off my to-do list by twenty-five, my best friend told me to pull my head out of my ass and stop trying so desperately hard to shape my life into the artificial mold I had created for myself. So at twenty-five years, one hour, and 45 minutes old, I let go of my “grand plan.” I adopted the best “come-what-may” mentality that can be expected of a psychotically type-A personality, took a deep breath, and looked forward to the year ahead. At twenty-six, I celebrated my last birthday as a student, and at twenty-seven, I celebrated the first birthday in which old and new friends came together and celebrated as one in the city I now call home. I will celebrate twenty-eight as a newly married woman, three-years behind “schedule.” And I am okay with that, because I wouldn’t take back the three years between for all the world.

Weekday Dish: Five Girls in their 20s……..

Only for another 6 months. Then it will be four girls in their 20s and one in her 30s. And that one is ME. There I said it. I’m turning the big 3-0 (don’t you hate when people use that phrase?!) this summer. I’m telling the world – or rather the 10 people who might read this blog.

Since the year I turned 26 twice, I’ve been trying to turn back time, and I’m not sure why. I turned 26 three times and this year will be my second try at 27. Everyone at work is confused about how old I really am and is constantly asking, and each in a different way: How old are you? What year were you both? My son’s 26, aren’t you his age? Seriously people, how am I supposed to keep track of my lie when you keep making me do math. So my routine answer has become, “I’m in my mid 20s” or “cresting on toward 30, although that seems really far away.” Heh, I think. That will keep them guessing (and me too).

I remember when I started we went out for a lunch for the summer birthdays on my actual birthday. I had only been there a few weeks so no one was expected to know it was my day. I was talking with a friend about how ironic (in an Alanis way, not actual irony) it was that we were going out on my actual birthday when he proceeded to email our director at work and slip her the info. At the lunch she spilled the beans, wishing me a happy one, then asking if I was 21. 21?! My first thought was: how could they have justified hiring someone who was just 21 into this job? My second thought was: does she really think I could have worked for 2 years and gone to grad school and still been 21? Who was I, Doogie?

I’ve really liked being the youngest (by almost 10 years) in my office, but lately it’s become a burden. Perhaps it’s always been a burden, but I’ve only recently discovered it. Turns out that if they think you’re only 21 they will treat you like you’re only 21. Especially when the Director and most of her senior leadership have birthdays (years included) within 12 months of each other. And that age is 50. So I’m the kid. Literally.

I really want to start embracing the impending 3-0 (said it again! Next thing you know I’ll start talking about only the weather and eating dinner at 4:30), but I can’t. It’s not in my genes. I remember when DaddyMonday turned 40 he left town for three days, no note, nothing. He had been stressing about that day for probably two years. GrammaMonday always talks about how 40 was fine for her, as was 50 and 60, it was 30 that was the problem.

I seriously don’t know what I’m going to do to get myself over this ageaphobia (new word. Definition: fear of revealing one’s true age). I want to embrace my age, especially since I have a lot to show for my 29.5 years, but as DaddyMonday reminds me: wait until 40. As GrammaMonday says: I spent my entire 30th birthday crying. And as MommaMonday says: At 29 your ability to conceive begins to decline. You do realize your eggs are drying up, right?

It seems the deck is stacked against my success.