My beloved turned 67 today. At last calculation, I have been with her for 38 of them--though only 25 days short of 39. She loves her birthday more than I love her and that says a lot because I love her oodles and oodles. She is a birthday fanatic who celebrates her special day for as long as humanly possible or at least the entire month of February. I get it, the world is lucky to have her in it!
The downside for me is that I miss out on a lot of her celebrations due to this work thing. She had been self-employed for years but retired when she turned 62 (I know, nice work if you can get it). So, now that she has even more time on her hands, she curses COVID for cutting into her special day. So far she has received a glitter cake from a good friend, a meal at a Vietnamese restaurant, been feted with wine and cheese and the was just yesterday.
Today, it is lunch with another friend, and tonight we will have a meal from one of her favorite places and have friends over for dessert. And so the celebration will continue until further notice, unabated.
I find it absolutely charming that she loves her birthday so much while at the same time hating the aging process the way she does. Her ability to love and hate these counterpoints is what delights me about her--the internal feuding that allows room for both complaint and pleasure.
Suffice to say that she is a complex cat. As for me, I am simpler about birthdays, but love to shower her with affection on hers. It is rare that you get to spend so much time with a person that is as dear as she is to me and I am eternally grateful that she is never boring, but also somewhat predictable. If she ever got tired of having her birthday, I would know that the tectonic plates have shifted irrevocably.
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