It’s My Birthday and I’ll Write If I Want To
Okay. So here it is…my birthday…July 6, 2008.
***Disregard the date above - This blog is on some strange Pacific time***
It is just about two hours into it. First thing I can attest to is that at 38 (yes, there, I said it!) I have yet to master sleeping. Of course, I sleep. However, I am not a good sleeper. It’s like this elusive skill other people seem to have that I lack. So it is exactly 1:45 a.m. and I am up, waiting for sleep, like it’s going to suddenly knock on my door and ask to come in and stay awhile.
So while I am up, I thought why not jot a few things down for posterity? What are the thoughts running through my head at this late (or incredibly early) hour? How can I document 38 in a meaningful way? To start, I am quite saddened that I did not get to see my niece for my birthday and before her first plane ride for vacation. Such is life. I am accepting that she is not mine and moving on.
Also, as I was in the bathroom washing my face and applying my anti-everything face cream, several different story ideas popped into my head in varying stages of completion. Titles also crept up, which is a good and a bad thing all at once. It is just further proof, I tell myself yet again, that writing books is what I must do and 38 is just the age to start doing it.
Among the many birthday cards I received this year were two from my friend, Jane. Two? What did I do to deserve this? Did she…perhaps…forget she sent one to me (this happens to some of us as we age)? Or, as often happens to me, did she buy one she was just ok with and only after writing up that card, find another that was just so much better than that one? Did she send one and then decide she liked that second better and couldn’t wait until next year to send it to me? Or could it be that, when I saw the second card, long and narrow, addressed in her familiar swirl of penmanship I realized I recognize instantly, I knew that there was another purpose?
It was the latter.
This is Jane. Since 1976 she is part of my life. In varying stages and absences and re-entries and resurfacing and rebuilding of our friendship and restoring the lost years through words and stories, she is there. What can Jane tell me about me? What can I learn about myself from someone who stands outside and looks in?
When I opened that second card, it was the message on the card – about my birthday being the start of a new “chapter” (I love book-speak!) and the heartfelt words that Jane added herself that made me both smile and nod in agreement. From her incredibly sweet and sincere words I understood that I can write not so much for myself, but for others. I understood that doubting myself as fiercely as I do and thinking I will never measure up is so yesterday. I understood that if everyone else can see something in me, why can’t I? I understood that fear to fail never did make for heroes or heroines.
The card ends: “Your birthday isn’t just another day – It’s the beginning of a new chapter in the wonderful ever-evolving story of you”. Then Jane adds that she thinks I can be that writer and gives me the wings and the push by telling me to go forward.
Then suddenly we are snorkeling, Jane and me, in beautiful waters off of Key West somewhere where the white hot sun and the ice blue seas kiss and embrace; somewhere where the sands cradle you in strange warmth that is both inviting and repelling. And there is Jane pushing me just slightly past my comfort zone – gently and with encouragement – inviting me to the watery world she loves so much. There she is, a mermaid among humans, in an undersea world where she feels just as, if not more, comfortable than on land. She is holding my hands and pulling me into deeper waters, but stopping when fear gets the best of me. When I shiver from head to toe and terror tells me to I should stop, she waits patiently, because she knows it will pass. There she is telling me it is easy and I can do it and this is how. There she is convincing me to go on this wild trip with her at a time when a flood at home had torn my world apart. There she is saying: “You need this vacation!” And there I am believing that it is okay to give myself permission to go.
She is so confident in those uncertain, vast and unfamiliar waters. It rubs off on me and I become fearless and I decide – It is now or it will never be! If not now, this instant, with a chance like this, then when? Without warning and in suspended belief I am under with her, in the beautiful, warm waters, looking at undersea worlds I never saw before, going deeper than I ever had before and being ok doing it. There I am, a girl from Queens with no previous knowledge of the beauty in other little treasures on this planet. I am aware that I am underwater, with a mouthpiece lodged between my clenched teeth, with a mask that permits me to keep my eyes wide open to take every inch of that majestic world in, and I know that somehow, I am smiling!
Coming back up for air, I am suddenly back in my house, on this night, on my birthday and I am reading Jane’s card again because…it is the middle of the night and I need the words again to get rid of the doubt that is trying to reenter my mind and my dreams. I am holding it and reading it and in it she says, without doubt and fearless, as I always envision her, “I know you can do this!” I hear myself saying it aloud: "It is now or it will never be!"
And I believe us both!
***Disregard the date above - This blog is on some strange Pacific time***
It is just about two hours into it. First thing I can attest to is that at 38 (yes, there, I said it!) I have yet to master sleeping. Of course, I sleep. However, I am not a good sleeper. It’s like this elusive skill other people seem to have that I lack. So it is exactly 1:45 a.m. and I am up, waiting for sleep, like it’s going to suddenly knock on my door and ask to come in and stay awhile.
So while I am up, I thought why not jot a few things down for posterity? What are the thoughts running through my head at this late (or incredibly early) hour? How can I document 38 in a meaningful way? To start, I am quite saddened that I did not get to see my niece for my birthday and before her first plane ride for vacation. Such is life. I am accepting that she is not mine and moving on.
Also, as I was in the bathroom washing my face and applying my anti-everything face cream, several different story ideas popped into my head in varying stages of completion. Titles also crept up, which is a good and a bad thing all at once. It is just further proof, I tell myself yet again, that writing books is what I must do and 38 is just the age to start doing it.
Among the many birthday cards I received this year were two from my friend, Jane. Two? What did I do to deserve this? Did she…perhaps…forget she sent one to me (this happens to some of us as we age)? Or, as often happens to me, did she buy one she was just ok with and only after writing up that card, find another that was just so much better than that one? Did she send one and then decide she liked that second better and couldn’t wait until next year to send it to me? Or could it be that, when I saw the second card, long and narrow, addressed in her familiar swirl of penmanship I realized I recognize instantly, I knew that there was another purpose?
It was the latter.
This is Jane. Since 1976 she is part of my life. In varying stages and absences and re-entries and resurfacing and rebuilding of our friendship and restoring the lost years through words and stories, she is there. What can Jane tell me about me? What can I learn about myself from someone who stands outside and looks in?
When I opened that second card, it was the message on the card – about my birthday being the start of a new “chapter” (I love book-speak!) and the heartfelt words that Jane added herself that made me both smile and nod in agreement. From her incredibly sweet and sincere words I understood that I can write not so much for myself, but for others. I understood that doubting myself as fiercely as I do and thinking I will never measure up is so yesterday. I understood that if everyone else can see something in me, why can’t I? I understood that fear to fail never did make for heroes or heroines.
The card ends: “Your birthday isn’t just another day – It’s the beginning of a new chapter in the wonderful ever-evolving story of you”. Then Jane adds that she thinks I can be that writer and gives me the wings and the push by telling me to go forward.
Then suddenly we are snorkeling, Jane and me, in beautiful waters off of Key West somewhere where the white hot sun and the ice blue seas kiss and embrace; somewhere where the sands cradle you in strange warmth that is both inviting and repelling. And there is Jane pushing me just slightly past my comfort zone – gently and with encouragement – inviting me to the watery world she loves so much. There she is, a mermaid among humans, in an undersea world where she feels just as, if not more, comfortable than on land. She is holding my hands and pulling me into deeper waters, but stopping when fear gets the best of me. When I shiver from head to toe and terror tells me to I should stop, she waits patiently, because she knows it will pass. There she is telling me it is easy and I can do it and this is how. There she is convincing me to go on this wild trip with her at a time when a flood at home had torn my world apart. There she is saying: “You need this vacation!” And there I am believing that it is okay to give myself permission to go.
She is so confident in those uncertain, vast and unfamiliar waters. It rubs off on me and I become fearless and I decide – It is now or it will never be! If not now, this instant, with a chance like this, then when? Without warning and in suspended belief I am under with her, in the beautiful, warm waters, looking at undersea worlds I never saw before, going deeper than I ever had before and being ok doing it. There I am, a girl from Queens with no previous knowledge of the beauty in other little treasures on this planet. I am aware that I am underwater, with a mouthpiece lodged between my clenched teeth, with a mask that permits me to keep my eyes wide open to take every inch of that majestic world in, and I know that somehow, I am smiling!
Coming back up for air, I am suddenly back in my house, on this night, on my birthday and I am reading Jane’s card again because…it is the middle of the night and I need the words again to get rid of the doubt that is trying to reenter my mind and my dreams. I am holding it and reading it and in it she says, without doubt and fearless, as I always envision her, “I know you can do this!” I hear myself saying it aloud: "It is now or it will never be!"
And I believe us both!
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