Dear June 21st,
For 38 years, I have been forced to sit through your interminable pomp and circumstance to reach my birthday.
June 21st! Summer solstice! Summer solstice! First official day of summer! Blah blah blah!
Well, whoop-dee-hella-do, Big Shot.
Not to mention Father’s Day often occupies your box on the calendar. I have some mixed emotions about Father’s Day, with its lawn mowers and home repairs and flags and polo shirts and intact families at the beach, tossing children into the J. Crew blue sky.
Rah rah! Aren’t you just a success, June 21st. Aren’t you JUST.
My birthday is the less exotic June 22nd. I didn’t slide out of my poor mother’s body into some stinkin’ holiday. Uh-uh. Nothing fancy about June 22, except that I share the birthdate with Meryl Streep and Cyndi Lauper, and 22 is supposed to be a major heavy in karma and numerology circles.
I am not turning 22, June 21st. That happened quite a while back, when my waist size was almost the same number.
I’ve had a lot of good birthdays, mostly a long time ago. I’ve had a lot of crap birthdays, especially in the second half of my life. I hate the pressure. I hate the fact that I’ve become someone who dreads her own birthday. That seems pompous and self-absorbed, the act of despising one’s own birthday. Narcissistic, and trendy. A terrible combo.
No telling how tomorrow will go. I’m sure I’ll be writing something or other in cranberry lipstick on the bathroom mirror. Hard to say which tally I’ll be hitting.
I have no choice but to muck through you and your damn solstice parties each year. And except for the fact that you’re my dear friend Janine’s birthday, I don’t really enjoy you. Thankfully, it’s now 11:11 pm, so I’m almost done with you, June 21st, and that’s something.
I have no plans for tomorrow, not for sure. I should get some ice cream. I should brush my hair. I should Be In The Moment, as much as possible. I am blessed to have cute kids who make me cards, and a mom who buys me flowers, and greetings from good friends.
(My box on the calendar is empty, but this year sure wasn’t. Thank you to all of you who saved my life—literally and figuratively—with your outpouring of love and care packages and wisdom. There should be a holiday for YOU.)
In fact, June 21st, since your dance card is full, I am hereby proposing that June 22nd be hereby known as the Day of the Kindness of Strangers, Almost-Strangers, Friends and Family. (I couldn’t have made it to 39 without you. Truly.)
I think, June 21st, that should be enough for any box on the calendar. Time to breathe in, and breathe out. Gratitude. Love. Chaos. That, and maybe some sushi.
See you next year, June 21st. Don’t let July hit you on the tush on the way out.
Sincerely,
Jenn M
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