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September 12, 2002 - Thirty and Five
Weeks of pushing and shoving and hauling and heat have finally come to an end, and I am remembering what it is like to be human again, one day at a time. My thoughts are as scattered and insubstantial as clouds - lie back and take a look at my sky.
To begin it is my birthday today. I am thirty years old and nothing ever seemed more ridiculous than that. But it's a fact, and it will always be with me now - I'll never be twentyanything again. I don't lament the passing of my twenties, and I'm sure - as I am on every birthday - that the years yet to come will be the best ones. What's wrong with thirty is that this decade may hold the year in which my life is half over. So, Happy Birthday to me. In recent weeks I found myself trying to recall the details of my birthday last year. It took me awhile to realize why there's only an awful hole where that memory should be. Hopefully this will be a better birthday for both of us (remember, Toby turns thirty-one tomorrow), unmarked by fresh tragedy. I've already ordered our cake - chocolate with mocha frosting - from the same bakery where Violet got the infamous "Turkey Cake" of two Thanksgivings ago. (Not turkey-flavored, but with a big frosting turkey on top of it.) No turkey for us, though - just "Happy Birthday Toby and Sascha" and a frosting flower or two. I'm meeting Violet to go pick it up at eleven o'clock. Then we must wait all day to eat it. No cake last year. Who would have wanted one?
We had an anniversary here, too. A big one - Number Five. There'd been more than just talk about taking the Scotia Prince up to Newfoundland for a weekend, but it's easy to see now that it would have been impossible. And our trip to the Revelry really was like a second honeymoon for us (in-laws one paper-thin wall away notwithstanding). I got Toby a poker-tongs-shovel-brush set for the fireplace. And he in turn shocked me with a pair of sapphire earrings. The morning after we were married, when we had breakfast together in the hotel's outdoor courtyard with the sun falling across us, I felt like a queen. And when I put those earrings on, and Toby beamed at me with such love and pride, I felt that way again and I told him so. Sapphire is our birthstone, and sapphire is for anniversary number five. So the gift is doubly meaningful, but it can't measure up to five years of waking up beside him each morning, or all the mornings still to come.
La petite makes her presence felt more every day. Finally, there was a night earlier this week when she pushed hard enough for Toby to feel her too, in spite of all the inches of Me between the two of them. I'm starting to feel a little tired, but I'm not giving up without a fight. Two more months to go and I don't intend to spend them broody and exhausted. So - back to the regular exercise and good eating habits that have served me so well this far, and early to bed each night. Wish I knew why my feet hurt all the time, though. My backside is what should really be sore, considering all the time I spend sitting on it ...
I was napping on the couch earlier this week when Toby came across something that was important enough to wake me for. It was a New Year's card from Gwendolyn. She was in the No-Tones with me in Baltimore - out of all of them, the only one who was really my friend. Her guy lives in Boston, so we've seen her once or twice over the past two years. It took a minute for my sleep-fogged brain to register that the return address on her card was - Providence! I called her up right away and it turns out she's on a fellowship at Brown for at least the next two years. And, unbelievably, the Friend Count rises to three!
Toby and I were at the bookstore the other day and I was flipping through the baby name books again (even though her name has already been chosen, in my mind at least) and something awful happened - my name was there. Granted, it was on a list of "do not under any circumstances inflict this name on your poor helpless little girl" names, but nevertheless there it was. Some poor dope might come across it and think oh how perfect! I live in terror of my name becoming trendy. It could happen - it's one of those nature-sounding names that would blend in perfectly with today's Sierras and Dakotas. And in my lifetime I've encountered dogs, sneakers, cabinetry, acoustical ceiling tiles, and even mercifully short-lived TV comedies that have borne it. But seeing it in a baby name book, even as a cautionary example, is really scary.
She moves almost all the time now. Subtle movements, sometimes, almost as if she's talking to herself. And sometimes heaving and thrashing - something trapped in my body that's had enough and wants to be free. I said all along that I wanted at least one before I was thirty. I can't see her yet, but I know that she's here, and that will do for now.
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