It’s my birthday today. I’m officially 41 by this time of day, since my mother informed me that I wasn’t born til 3-something PM. I didn’t dig into it too far because somehow her story always ends with the words, “I shoved you out of my vag” and, for an easily explainable reason, that grosses me out. Having shoved four kids out of my own vag makes it no less gross. Nobody wants to think about their mom’s lady bits. :shudder:
Aaaaaaanyway.
I have been spoiled to high heaven for three days now. Every time I make mention of this, someone inevitably responds with, “You deserve it!” and I cringe. What does that even mean? Are there people who don’t deserve to be loved on their birthdays? Why do I deserve that love but they don’t? I’m just doing what I do, man. I’m a hot mess mama doing her best not to permanently warp her offspring. We don’t shower as often as we should and we have a carbon footprint the size of Rhode Island. I cuss too frequently and we eat McDonald’s too often. Apparently these are the steps one must take in order to deserve a good birthday.
I have always loved my birthday because I share the day with my baby brother who is four years my junior. (The particulars of the fertility math are equally as comforting to a teen child as they are horrifying to an adult one, but there we go talking about my mom’s vag again so STOP IT.) This birthday love only really changed last year, and not because I turned forty. It was because my birthday was a mere 9 days before the worst day of my life, when Pook, Boogie and I almost died. I spent last January in some sort of PTSD fugue. The babies’ actual first birthday was nearly as hard on me as living through it the first time, as crazy as that may sound. I watched the clock and remembered the details far too vividly. I could smell the blood and even though my babies were in the house with me, the terror of losing them was so real. I relived both of those surgeries the doctors wouldn’t let me sleep through. I just felt mired down in the muck and I couldn’t break free.
I’ve been dreading January for some time now, but somehow it doesn’t feel as black this year. Words cannot express the depth of my profound gratitude that this is the case. There are a great many things I am thankful for in my life and a lot of them originated on the day Pook and Boogie were born. The ability to appreciate those blessings without mentally replaying my son’s heart stop is not lost on me. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get here and I am grateful that hope has reappeared on my January horizon.
I watched a National Geographic special about insects this week and it got me thinking. Through a variety of butterfly-related Googling, I learned a whole lot about metamorphosis. We talk a lot about the caterpillar in metaphors – that there’s a butterfly waiting within, to be patient and wait for beauty, etc. What we don’t discuss nearly as much is that the process of changing from a caterpillar to a butterfly requires massive amounts of hormones in the caterpillar which literally break down its cellular structure to allow the butterfly to take shape. In order for that beautiful thing to emerge, the caterpillar is essentially dissolved by its own emotions until who it was is simply… gone.
I’ve spent the last two years feeling frustrated because I no longer recognize the person I’ve become on the other side of that traumatic day. I don’t know her and I don’t know if I particularly like her. So now I’m trying to mentally rewrite my own narrative. Maybe it’s ok that I don’t know this version of me. Maybe it’s ok to get to know her instead of looking for a way back to what she was. Maybe some things are just too powerful, too intense, to experience without dissolving in emotion and emerging on the other side a changed person. And maybe that’s ok, too.
I’m not sure what 41 holds for me because nothing in the past two years has gone according to plan. My final pregnancy photo was taken this day two years ago, just a week before my last day as a career woman. There is very little about my life today that resembles the life I lived in that picture. I still miss that life some days and I’m trying to be ok with that, too.
For now, I do believe it’s time to eat the final piece of my birthday cake hidden in the fridge. And happy birthday, Brubs, because I know you’re reading this. You will always be the best birthday gift I’ve ever received and my life has been made infinitely more rich by being your sister. You’re also one of the best and biggest reasons I’m still on this side of eternity, which makes you a lot more fun to think about than mom’s vag.
My Five Ring Circus 