Pages

Monday, October 20, 2014

37

Despite spending the entire weekend indoors, trying to rest, and Max's very strong proclamations that one cannot be sick on their birthday, I am indeed still sick. On my birthday.

I know how colds go for me, and I'm on the upswing now, as the cold is mainly in my chest now. I no longer feel like I'm running a fever (which for me is anything about 99 degrees), and I no longer feel like I was punched in the sinuses. So, progress. But it'll likely be weeks before my cough totally goes away.

My parent's dog Ginger passed away last week, and while I was looking back at old pictures to find some of her, I was struck instead by pictures of myself. I was shocked to see how good I looked, posed with Marc before attending a fancy company event, or just playing with infant Hannah on the old rug in her room. If you'd asked me then, I wouldn't have said I looked particularly good. It's a curse, that we don't know how good something is when we have it. But I was also videotaped for a training at work last week, and so I saw myself, granted, not dressed up for a swanky event, but still having made an effort, and oof. I look so tired.

I'd joked that morning that I was my own version of hungover, which includes no alcohol, but having done too many things and having stayed up too late. So, yes, I was tired.

And I know that most of the people I surround myself with at this point are older than me, so a constant theme in my life is hearing that I'm so young, that I'm just a baby still. So it surprised me to see that it's really true. I look a lot older than I did then.

Just before my birthday, October 2004
The upside to all of this? The little baby in that picture has also gotten older, and she's utterly fabulous. The baby I couldn't even picture at that point is counting the days until he turns seven. And the other family and friends who also look 10 years younger in those pictures I found? They're still by my side. Along with a lot of great new people, too.

Yes, I'm sick, and I'm very tired, but I'm still incredibly lucky. I need to recommit to solving the sleeping piece, and probably the exercise piece too, but if a birthday isn't when you take stock of things like that, then I don't know what is. Thirty-six was the year I took my family to Israel and the year I produced a show, the realization of a more-than-decade long held goal, and a goal I never knew I had.

It is worth it, this growing older and looking older. That girl with the windswept hair above? She had no idea of all the good things still to come.

2 comments:

  1. I love this post. Growing old is sort of bittersweet, but it's so amazing to look back and see what the future held for that woman.

    Happy Birthday, friend! Love you to bits!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love how you always find the positive! Hope 37 rocks!

    ReplyDelete