Another Year

Dear Reader,

I had a birthday.

A big one.

I turned twenty-five.

I feel old.

People I remember being born are getting married.

I've started saying things like,

"I remember you when you were knee-high to a grasshopper."

I've been tempted to pinch a cheek or two.

I'm asking for a moment of silence from all of you who are older than me.

Just let me wallow in my imagined antiquity for a brief spell. . .

...

...

...

Ok, I'm all done now.

Isn't it strange how, as you get older, you have more and more items on your "birthday list" that aren't things?

My birthday started the night before, with a bubble bath in an, otherwise unoccupied, bathroom with my favorite book. It lasted a whole fifteen minutes without someone pounding on the door hollering, "MOm!"

That's a record.

I heard Mr. Loggerhead telling the kids, "Just leave Mommy alone. She deserves to be left alone for a minute or two!"

I don't know about deserving it but I sure enjoyed it.

It was also Thanksgiving so the day was filled with lots of blessings and things to be thankful for.

Like seeing my dad connecting with my children.

They really do love him. I love that.

Then there was all that food.

All that blessed food.

All that food I didn't have to cook.

All that food I got to watch my family enjoy.

All except this one. He settled for eating his shirt. He's been doing that a lot lately. It sure cut's down the grocery bill.

If he doesn't cut it out we will have to get him one of these.

I got to watch Mr. Loggerhead enjoying himself with all his logger-brothers.

He has four.

And no sisters.

There is a special place in Heaven for his dear mother.

Speaking of men, I got to de-bunk two theories about them that day.

#1. Men can cook.

#2. Men (sometimes) read directions.

There is nothing I like better than a little friendly myth-debunking. And two in twenty-four hours? It really must have been my birthday.

It turns out the best gifts don't come in fancy paper. They come wrapped in love, classic as Jane Austin and soft as your mother's chenille bathrobe. They smell like a Thanksgiving feast and when you shake them they sound like the tinkle of children's (and sometime's grown men's) laughter. They are the things myths and legends are made of.

They are the days of your life.

All in all, twenty-five looks pretty good from where I'm standing.

Love,

Rae