Birthday Milestones

In January at our house on the first day of the month, we take down the Christmas flag out front and fly the Happy Birthday flag.  That’s because 50% of our household celebrates a birthday this month.

Just before he turned two John was chatting with a woman at the library and said he was having a birthday the next week.  She said, “ Oh, how old will you be?”

He quickly replied, “Seven.”  Even though he’s always seemed mature for his age, it’s still hard to believe he will be a teenager this month.    

It’s a milestone I remember approaching myself very vividly all those years ago. I couldn’t wait to be a teenager.  It is when I started getting “Seventeen” magazine at the grocery store, when the songs all started to make sense, when I gave up glasses for contacts and when everything seemed possible.  Now, it seems impossible it could be happening to him.

But at the same time, I face the impossible reality that I also celebrate a milestone birthday this month.  Frankly, I have staged quite a war in my head over how to best handle the situation.  Part of me would very much like it to pass without notice and to simply pretend it’s not happening, to hide it quietly from the world.  Unfortunately, the other part of me, the Mom who has to answer to two inquiring minds who will want to know why it’s OK for me to lie, knows it’s probably better to just act as though it doesn’t bother me at all and simply walk right past it like it’s just any other day.  So I’m hoping confession is indeed good for the soul and will be taking the honest route and embracing the day with open arms.  But in a nod to vanity the actual number shall remain unmentionable. 

It’s interesting really how everything seems to appear in just a little different light in the second half century.  When I was turning 13 I knew I was invincible and it was a great big world ready to be conquered.  I was ready for my first car and hoped it would have FM radio.  I couldn’t wait to check off my list of things I dreamed of doing.  I feared only acne and such social embarrassments as being the tallest one in school.  But failure wasn’t one of them. 

Now, I know that mortality is to be respected and I wish I could figure out how to make a child’s teenage brain heed the caution I so desperately want it to recognize.  I now see the world as threatening, a bully waiting to pounce on someone so young and naïve to dare to think anything is possible. The joy of driving my sensible and economical crossover vehicle is tainted by the challenge of actually seeing since my bifocal contacts don’t seem to bring either near or far items into full focus.  My dreams strayed long ago from career ladders to just making sure we don’t fall off of one; hoping for good health, to avoid any of the disasters we are insured against, and to somehow save enough to retire at least from a fulltime job.  I fear the effects of gravity and sun and worry about such social embarrassment as using the senior discount at the grocery store.  Acne cream has become wrinkle cream.  My memory fails me every day.

And so as we blow out our birthday candles this year we will enjoy different levels of enthusiasm for our milestones, my son and I.   He will be thrilled and proud.  I will be less so.  But my hope is that the energy emanating from my new teenager will somehow radiate to his parents and to give us the insight we need to be hip while managing not to break one, to be cool even through hot flashes, to understand even when the language changes, to laugh because life doesn’t have to be so serious, and to remember the bright spark of light that is your youth, even though your too young to appreciate it until your 50.