04 Feb Happy Birthday…
Today, number two son, as in the second born rather than in preference, turned thirty-four. My other two children, however, call him the Golden Child and believe he’s my favourite! What mother has favourites? OK, let’s rephrase that. What mother has favourites and actually admits to it! Anyway, I think all the fruit of your loins grab numero uno status at sometime in their lives, and for different reasons. And that’s all I’m saying about that subject!
Now, back to what I was going to say before I went off track! If I said I had him when I was really young, then I could possibly pretend I’m in my early fifties. The truth is I’m a decade older than that. It’s easy to try and forget about your own birthday and not celebrate it. It’s not so easy, however, to forget your offspring’s special day. Especially as you were there at the birth… for every hour of blood, sweat, tears and pain of the labour. And, for me, that was with an epidural. Can you imagine what I’d have been like without one? I shudder to think. I’m pretty sure I’d just be getting out of incarceration for a double murder. First, for the husband that put me in that state. The other, for my obstetrician. Why him? Do you know how many times he said we’re nearly there, when WE weren’t? Anyway, I digress. Happy Birthday, Zac.
When I was to turn forty, I decided to put on the skids. And not as in the dirty marks that sometimes appear in the jocks of some of the males in the household. I wanted to put a halt on getting older, so I devised what I thought was a very clever plan. I wasn’t going to get a year older. Marvellous idea, isn’t it! And it actually worked for a while. You see, I went from forty to 40A, then 40B, 40C and so on. By the time I got to 40G it started to sound a lot like a bra size! So, I then admitted to being forty-one and a bit. The and a bit was very important, or so I believed. To me, it demonstrated I was admitting to being a tad older than forty-one. And really, in the scheme of things, being forty-seven is only a trifle more than forty-one! If you live to be one hundred, then seven years is only (she searches madly for a calculator… 7/100 x 100 =) 7%! A piffle, nothing to get your knickers in a knot about, particularly when we’re discussing age! And women discussing age, at that.
As I said, it worked for a while. Then the fine lines and wrinkles started to appear. Quite unnoticeable at first, unless you used the ten times magnitude mirror I did. It was necessary to get rid of the extra hairs that had started to inhabit parts of my face I didn’t want them to. Plus, it was easier to tweeze the eyebrows and not make such a dogs’ dinner of them. Not that they were even to start with! And back to the subject… lines and wrinkles on a woman age her. On a man, not so much. Apparently, they’re laughter lines and well-earned, along with their grey hair that is distinguished! Pwffff! (Not what I really had in mind to utter, but….) In a very roundabout way, I’m stating that a woman can only lie about her age for so long. You can pretend you’re younger than you really are, not celebrate your fiftieth until you’re fifty-five, but eventually it all catches up with you. And definitely at the airport when you pass though customs and they wish you a Happy 60th Birthday, with emphasis on the 60th. Yes, it was a male… say no more!
Basically, unless I want to admit I was more virginal than Mother Mary, and had my eldest son at sixteen, my second son at eighteen and my daughter at twenty-one, I need to fess up to the real year of my birth. I need to accept those laughter lines, sagging jowls, flabby upper-arms, boobs that are no longer perky and a bottom that has slumped so low I now have rolls at the back of my knees.
And you wonder why I didn’t celebrate my fiftieth. Oh, that’s right, husband number two decided it was a good time to leave! Or why I went on a Caribbean cruise for my sixtieth, so now one I knew was there to let the cat out of the bag. That was done by our wonderful steward who plastered it all over the cabin door… in very large letters so this aged woman could read it without her glasses from about one hundred metres away. He’s still waiting for his tip!
So, Zac, happy birthday, with lots of bells and whistles. This is all about your special day and not about me at all. Cheers!
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