I remember the day I turned 16 and headed off to take my driver’s test so I could have that coveted driver’s license which would give me so much more freedom, or at least I thought. I still even remember my birthdays as a child with two parties- one for the adults and one for my friends from the neighborhood and school. My mother, who, like me, loved to bake, would always make cupcakes and take them into my grade school on my birthdays as well. The kids would all sing Happy Birthday to me on my special day. I did not mind my birthdays at all-for who would not like cake and ice cream and presents! It was my special day! As I grew older the celebrations diminished but it was my special day and one cannot ever outgrow cake and ice cream not matter what age!
When I turned 18 I remember the wild party that ensued with my high school classmates for I had reached adulthood and was now able to vote, work without restrictions, own my car and other property and for most things treated as an adult. When I turned 21and was able to legally drink everywhere and I remember my friends taking me out for a wild celebration that included each one taking turns buying me shots of their choice (and each trying to be more “creative”) with the expectation that I was to make it to 21 shots in addition to all the other alcohol I had consumed. I remember 17 shots but nothing afterward until about 5 AM in the morning when I was eating at some 24 hour diner with the few survivors. It did not matter- I was young and I was invincible. I did not need sleep and I partied like there was no tomorrow- what did I care I was young and my whole life was ahead of me!
Each birthday after that was a nice celebration of cake and ice cream and each birthday morning in my old life began with the playing on the stereo of the Beatle’s classic hit “Birthday” followed that evening by presents and cards from my family. My ex always took me out to dinner to celebrate as I did for her birthday. When I turned 30, I still felt so young and invincible and still carrying deeply buried secret so immersed in side me- but I still had so much of my life left. My daughter was only four and my son had just been born two weeks earlier. I made more money than I knew what do with as a young partner in a law firm of much prestige.
On the day I turned forty I took the day of work to spend the day with my son and daughter who were off school for some reason. By this time the secret I had been carrying had long since emerged and I had long begun struggling with my identity of who I really was underneath that shell that hid me so well for so long and my career was began to unravel as well. But I still believed I could control it- I was invincible! The day started as usual with the blaring of the Beatle’s tune and that weekend would be presents and cake and dinner with my family. My staff at the office had decided to decorate my office with tombstones and black streamers and all sorts of decorations insinuating that I was “over the hill”! I laughed at the spectacle. I was forty- I was still young and I had my whole life ahead of me and I was still a partner in a law firm and making more money in year than my father made in six or seven years! I did not give one thought to the decade that was ahead of me.
The past decade did many things to shake me from my feeling of youth and invincibility. My true self continued to emerge from the layers I had poured on her and made me feel so much more alive but also so much more vulnerable. A few years into the decade I would be faced with dealing with Alzheimer’s which had ravished my mother and the advanced age of my parents as well as the ultimate deaths of my mother and my father and the untimely death of my brother. I began to realize that I was not invincible and someday my time would come. I did not want people to remember me as the person I was not and as a coward who hid the real me from the world. The decade would bring about the decision to transition to live my life as who I really was and not someone I pretended to be. I left the law firm and began another career and then yet another. My transition brought about many changes in me and the disintegration of my family relations and rejection of my children. I met Paula and over a year fell in love with this beautiful loving woman who accepted me and embraced me for who I truly was and we began a life together but that only added more pain to others. I would be challenged physically with medications, hormones, laser and electrolysis and, of course, several difficult and physically challenging surgeries to bring my anatomy in line with my soul and essence!
Now in a couple weeks I will hit another milestone- my fiftieth birthday! 50- For God sakes that is old! I really don’t feel that old and hopefully I don’t look it either but just saying it makes me feel old. Thirty was young and forty sounded kind of young-BUT 50 is old. I face this coming birthday with some trepidation! I don’t care what you say about some of you hitting 50 or even 60 or 70 already ……turning fifty really hits you right smack in the face with a taunting message that says…”Just how invincible are you now girl!!!”I can no longer tell myself I am in my forties and still “sort of young”. No – I am about to embark on the fifties and that my friends is no longer young- no matter how you look it. I am a middle-aged woman……
Although I will enter this birthday landmark with some trepidation; I cannot stop it from coming anymore than I could all the rest of them that have come before …..it will come just like the rest of them came, with a little fanfare, some well wishes and cards, some presents from my love Paula, a nice dinner out and some cake and ice cream. It will come and I will enter a new decade of life but this decade will be at least one of living it as who I truly am and always have been! Maybe it will also include a blaring of a little Beatles tune as well….I guess I should be glad it is not “When I’m sixty-four” huh?
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