BIRTHDAYS
Cindy Maddera
"Thirty nine"
Tomorrow, I will turn thirty nine. I am on the fence about this. Thirty nine sounds like a joke. It's the age that people who fear growing older will claim they are for birthday after birthday. When I tell people that I am thirty nine, they will laugh and say "very funny! But how old are you really?" This is a reaction I get any way, but it's usually because they don't believe I am that old. Except now I won't be able to stop thinking that they are thinking I'm trying to pull a fast one about my age. I swear it! I am thirty nine, or at least I will be tomorrow. 7:20 PM to be exact.
I have made it no secret that I relish in the idea of growing old and how I can't wait to be a little old lady leading chair yoga classes in the old folks home and doing macrame. I'm going to play so much bingo. I can't wait to turn forty. Aging is a right of passage. I am thrilled by each new white hair the shows up on my head. Yet I get more and more blaze about the actual day of my birth every year. That day lost its specialness years ago. I am still haunted by shitty birthdays of the past. The theory is that if I don't make any sudden movements and just quietly turn a year older, the gods will take little notice and won't feel the need to fuck things up for me.
Last night, Michael and I stopped in at a Super Target to grab a few things I'd forgotten to get the day before. As we were pushing our cart down the front isle of the store, we passed a rack of sweat pants. I glanced over and gasped. "I have to get these sweat pants!" They were turquoise with a purple thirty nine screen printed on the thigh. It was agreed that this was an appropriate impulse buy. I find it completely hilarious and juvenile to wear sweat pants with my age on them. It's like the Cabbage telling everyone she meets "I am four!" but Hell yeah. I am thirty nine!
Or at least I will be tomorrow. And I'm wearing those pants.