I am a freak about my birthday - not in a way that I want everyone to celebrate it or make a big fuss, but in the fact that each year I internally agonize over it. My rational is that I'm getting older - I should be better. What have I learned, what did I accomplish? What will set this year apart from those in the past?
Well I have 30 days until my birthday and the anguish has begun. I've started the diet because I'm 10 pounds heavier than last year. I've started researching botox and microderm abrasion - to the point of obsessiveness. I've revised my five-year plan..... I have started cringing every time I hear the words middle age. My hands start sweating and I get a tad bit woozy.
My mother called the other night and sweetly said, "Who's got a birthday coming up?" And I swear I would have snapped her head off if she had been standing in front of me.
It's pure craziness. I know it is, and every year I say that I'm not going to let it get to me. But every year it does.
Like the year I turned 30. My best friend, who knows very good and well how neurotic I am about this - decided that we should go to Chicago for a girls weekend to celebrate. We planned and booked a few months in advance. Well as the day got closer - I got freakier ....... and then it happened. One week before my birthday, my best friend, who I just happen to work with and was the HR Director at our firm LAID ME OFF!!!!
Of course, it wasn't her fault or her decision but the fact remained it was her job. Afterwards she immediately took my out for drinks and did not once stop me from bawling or look embarrassed as the mascara rolled down my face …..
She patted me and stroked my ego and said wonderful things like “it shouldn’t have been you” and “you will be missed” and “would you like me to go kill the boss” and “we can duct tape him to a poll, naked and shoot bottle rockets at him” ….
Of course our trip was already planned and paid for so she convinced me that we had to go. She showed up at the airport with a tiara and bright hot pink boa, escorts me to the closest bar and bought me two, back to back, bloody marys with double shots. Needless to say we spent way too much time in the airport bar and our seats were given away to Nuns – but that’s a completely another story for a later time.
As we finally boarded the second plane, all decked out in birthday attire, she hands me a card with a smirky grin, inside was my termination letter. Now you would think this is the cruelest thing ever but noooooo – she looks at me and says, “I think you can probably get some mileage out of this!” So as if the hot pink boa wasn’t enough to grab every ones attention - everywhere we went she made me tell the “My best friend fired me on my 30th birthday and here’s the letter to prove it” story. So needless to say I was showered with free gifts and booze everywhere we went for the entire weekend.
Now as funny as that story is it was hell on my ego. And it has set the pattern for the birthdays of my 30’s. Each year something major seems to happen right before the doom day comes. Now as 33 is lurking – the anticipation is growing like a tumor the size of a watermelon.
I think I will begin praying to the good karma gods now …..
