Birthday

As we travel through mid-life, at some point we have to reckon with our own aging.  Not only the reckoning with aches and pains, the slowing down of metabolism, the burden of responsibility in every decision we make, but also the reckoning with the actual number.  Do we stare it down?  Hit it head on with jokes and sarcasm?  Don a Hawaiian shirt and dance on the bar?  Or do we ignore it, as if passing from 9 to 10, or 22 to 23, or as if changing from a black pair of pants to a blue one?

My husband has a birthday tomorrow.  A big one.  One of those decade markers.  The one that is important enough to have its own roman numeral.  And while I would be taking my own personal holiday for a week on such an occasion--perhaps a month, soaking my toes in an ocean or climbing to the pinnacle of Kilimanjaro--my husband is completely ignoring it.  He has denied me the opportunity to give him gifts, to shower him alternately with love and jokes about aging, to bake him a cake and sing and dance with others that life has triumphed for one more year.  He maintains that for him, it’s just another day.  Which, of course, it is, but I can’t help but wonder what he’s missing by not celebrating his survival at top volume to the masses, or at least to his trusted friends and family.

But my husband is a simple man, with simple tastes.  And above all, on his birthday, I will respect his wishes.  So I pour my love for him into cutting the apples for his apple cake, which I will serve here at home after his special meal of rib roast and roasted vegetables and cheeses from here and yon.  And I will pour him a glass of champagne and raise a toast to celebrating life, simply.

And we’ll make travel plans….for an exotic location.  Before he has to face another number.  Happy Birthday, my love.