I keep feeling like 41 will be a fairly depressing birthday. Not the age, I’m fine with that: I mean the day, specifically. Rudder won’t be here until a week afterward, and it’s not really practical for my family to send presents, because of the international mail, because my future is uncertain enough that I really ought to be editing possessions rather than acquiring them (not that I’m any good at that), and because since I’m on travel, the choice is between sending them here (where I will have to get them home) or sending them home (where I won’t get to enjoy them for a month. Also, of my birth family, only my parents would be likely to send anything at all; my uncle has more important things to worry about (his own chemo) and my brother has been terrible about sending presents for years. (And yes I am still peeved about that. I know lots of people don’t believe that presents ought to be obligatory and I agree when it comes to a wider circle, but among immediate family to whom you’ve regularly given gifts since infancy, the rules are different. And they stay different unless you have an actual conversation about changing the rules, which requires action rather than inaction.)
Anyway. Ahem. Still peeved, yes.
It’s not really all that reasonable for me to think the birthday will suck, even if the actual day will be a work day with no one around to celebrate. My parents will send an e-card at the least, maybe a donation in my name (my suggestion when they asked what to do). Rudder will call and will arrange a present or maybe a weekend trip; might be delayed but will happen. My in-laws will call and/or send something. I will spend the weekend before in a city I love, meeting a longtime onlne friend for the first time, and I’ll probably treat myself to some books at one of Amsterdam’s two English-language bookstores. I will wear the leather jacket I bought for myself. I will follow the Dutch tradition and have vlaai (pie) delivered to work and people will come eat it and shake my hand and wish me gefeliciteerd. And I will probably take one of those books and take myself to one of my favorite restaurants in the world for dinner.
It’ll be good, really. I just need to keep reminding myself of that until the proper attitude is engendered.
When is it, exactly? Let us at least shower you with happy comments…
Kat,
Monday. 🙂
I’m not one of those people who keeps quiet about my own birthday (I learned the folly of that the year I tried to and if it hadan’t been for one tiny passing comment my husband *would* have forgotten it. It’s not that he doesn’t care, just that he’s apt to get to thinking of it as May 10 instead.) I just forget that not everyone’s on LJ (which reminds you of your friendslist’s birthdays) or has been here to see me discuss it year after year.