Uncontemplated Age

      A while back, almost two weeks ago now, I got a package in the mail from my mom.  It had this sticker on it:

      So, of course I couldn't wait to open it.  Inside, I found this:

      Yes, it's that time of year again.  Time to take stock of just how stone age old I am getting.  Time for MacGvyer to make fun of me and Punky to ask me if we had X or Y when I was a kid (2 years ago, she asked me if there were cars when a was a kid, sheesh!).  It's birthday season in the Cheap Wine and Cookies household.

      September - Flintstone and my dad
      October - Punky
      Novemeber - Me
      December - MacGyver *** Check out my MacGyver Gifts Pinterest board to help me pick a gift for him!!***
      January - MacGvyer's mom
      February - Boo
      March - My mom

      Yeah, Birthday Season.  Oh, and you know, with all those other holidays thrown in there for good measure. 

      Still, I had all but forgotten my birthday this year.  In the midst of all the craziness for Punky's party (which was huge), then Halloween and Samhain, switching jobs, going TAD, and just generally having 465 plates spinning, my birthday didn't even register.  And it was on a Saturday this year, too!

     MacGyver, not at all surprisingly, was already well prepared and had big plans up his sleeve.  Sadly, that didn't come to fruition because the illness that Flintstone had recently had turns out to be the sickness that won't go away.  99% of the time, it doesn't bother him at all.  After he got over the couple days of projectile bodily fluids, he was fine.  He just had this little cough that didn't bother him and only showed up once in a while.  Well, as it turned out that tiny nothing cough was slowly brewing into pneumonia.  Erg.  So I spent half my birthday in the Dr.'s office with him.  He was one very sad little monkey for a couple of days, but he's fine now.  Except he still has the cough.  Erg.  What ticks me off more than anything about all this is that we barely ever get sick.  We eat super healthy.  We don't smoke.  We're active.  We're clean but not antisceptic.  And thanks to all that and good genes, we don't get sick often at all.  And yet my baby has been sick-ish for weeks.  I hate it.

      And so we didn't do much of anything on my birthday, which was fine since I had forgotten it was my birthday anyway.

      MacGyver special ordered me a case of Crazy Richard's peanut butter (which contains peanuts and NOTHING else) because it is impossible to get peanut butter that doesn't have salt, sugar, or oil in it down here, and he got me three new pairs of jeans that I desperately needed (and LOVE - they fit perfectly - they are super hot).

      But that was it.  Well, I got 80 some odd birthday wishes on Facebook, which always makes me smile, but really, my birthday this year was a non-event. 

      Normally, I would insist on celebrating my birthday.  Any excuse to celebrate, right?  But there was just something different about it this year.  At first, I just shrugged it off to the whirlwind of other things going on in my life right now.  But over the course of the day, as it became clear that apparently everyone in my life (and I mean everyone) thought I was turning 28, it sort of dawned on me:  I never, ever pictured myself being 29.  I never had that moment a week or two, or even a day, before my birthday when I thought, "Wow, I'm going to be 29."  I don't think I have ever once in my life pictured myself being 29.

      Twenty-eight was easy.  I always figured I wanted to have kids around the time I was 28 (check!).  Heck, I even thought I was 28 half the time when I was 27 (something MacGvyer thought was hilarious and totally played along with until I was completely confused).  Twenty-eight was a great age.  It was easy to see myself at 28.

      And the problem isn't that I can't see myself older.  I can.  I can see myself when Punky is a teenager.  I can see myself more senior in my career.  And I can totally see myself as an old crone in a big house covered in ivy who acts like Sophia Patrillo and all the local kids think is a witch.

      But 29 never crossed my mind.  I never saw myself as 29.

      What does one do at 29?  The last year of my 20's.  Holy cow.  That seems big.  Except, really, who considers 29 "in your 20's" really?  Twenty-eight, sure, but not twenty-nine.  Twenty-nine is really the beginning of your 30's.  (Watch out for me to take that back vehemently here in the near future!).

       But I'm NOT 30.  I'm not "in my 30's."  Are you kidding me?  I am an adult with a house, a mortgage, a solid, respectable career, a husband, and 2 kids.  I regularly say things like, "when I was your age - " and "kids these days" (or words to that effect), and yet it all still feels completely surreal.  There are times - a lot of times - when I can't believe that I am a grown-up.  I look around myself and none of it seems real.  People coming to me for legal advice?  I have the power to tell people what to do with their lives?  Happily married with my own house?  Me?  No freaking way.  Putting on my uniform or slipping into a suit for court feels like playing dress up.  (The mom thing is different, and it gets it's own post).

       Some days, I don't feel grown up at all.  And because of those days, I can say confidently that there is no WAY I'm 30.  And, of course, I'm not.  I'm 29.  Or so I'm told.  But really, what is 29?  I suppose I'm about to find out . . .