Happy Birthday, I Guess

My 35th birthday was Friday.  It went largely uncelebrated though I joked to a friend that there would be a parade, pony rides and face-painting.  Hey, a girl can dream.  I just can't kick this funk I've been in, though I've certainly faked my way through it with friends, co-workers and family, and I'm afraid that my birthday didn't help at all.

I feel like I do a lot of belly-aching about stuff on my blog but you'd never know how sad I was if you knew me in person.  A long time ago, after my grandparents died and I was having a rough time coping at work (and at home,) a concerned supervisor gave me one of those "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff....and it's all small stuff" books and a higher-up sent me a copy of one of those 'fake the fun and you'll start to have fun' popular books.  It worked, I appreciated the gesture and I got the message "don't show your personal shit, it's annoying and unprofessional" and I've lived by it.  I've also learned over the years that people don't care what's on my mind or how I feel, they want to talk about how they feel.  And I've worked in an industry for years and years that caters to others' needs, not mine, so it's only compounded over time and turned me into some sort of weird privately-emotional, publicly-happy robot.

People like to be around happy people and seem to like to be around me and invite me to parties and such.  But the conversation never gets much deeper than what we're eating, drinking or wearing or how great or horrible the last movie we saw was or general silliness.  I'm the Queen of General Silliness.  Inevitably, someone hits a rough patch, wants someone to talk to, I take the call and genuinely listen and care.  But since the tables have turned and I find myself in a sad slump, there's no one there to take my call.  I told a girlfriend a few weeks ago, "I'm embarrassed to say this out loud, because it's such a cliché for my age, but I'm really lonely and I'm really scared that I always will be."  She made a joke, I said I was serious, I started to cry, she said that I needed to learn to love myself.  She can fuck off.  But, I thought, this is the wrong audience (she's unhappily married) so I need to talk to someone else.  But then I got a joke from the happily married one about how much their dog loves me (he does) and too bad people would talk if I wed a three-year-old Boxer.  That didn't make me feel any less pathetic.

I'm not even talking about marriage here, by the way, just companionship.  Someone to go to a movie with.  Someone to go out for breakfast with on Sunday mornings, someone to go to a baseball game with and maybe go on a hike or something.  Someone to talk to and tell funny stories to and listen to as well.  So I thought I'd talk to my best gay friend and his boyfriend, they'd have to understand!  No.  They thought I was talking about sex and when I clarified that that's not what I'm looking for, they were both dumbfounded and disbelieving.  He said "So, basically, you just want a friend."  I said "I guess so, but more like a friend who really likes me."  And then he dropped a bomb and didn't even know it, he said "But you have friends, lots of friends."  And that was the moment I realized I don't have a single true friend.  And that's why I'm so lonely.

True, I'm lonely because I'm getting old, I'm not meeting people, my clock is ticking and all that, but I'm lonely because I have the world's worst friends.  I can't remember the last time someone asked me to do something that didn't specifically benefit them.  The nice husband of one of my girlfriends has a lot of single guy friends.  I was at their house for dinner earlier this month and he said he should introduce me to some of his friends and see what happens.  She said "No!  Who will I hang out with if she gets involved with someone?!  I'll never see her!"  Before you comment, it has nothing to do with not wanting to introduce me to the wrong guy - she really, truly is that selfish.  She meant what she said exactly as she said it.  Don't take her toy away!

So, here I am, thirty-five.  Single, sad, aging, unsupported, directionless.  My mother forgot to mail my birthday present and said she was sorry it was going to be late.  I said "Don't worry about it, it's late every year, I usually get it after July 4th, you're just keeping up the tradition." and she got mad and yelled at me.  My brother forgot my birthday; my dad had to call and remind him, and he said my card was in the mail.  My dad accidentally had my present shipped to his house instead of mine and he and my stepmom are traveling until the end of the summer, so I can drive the hour and a half to his empty house to pick up my birthday present.  He was genuinely sorry but it just seems to be the way things go for me.  Thank goodness for my little sister.  What would we do without them?!?  She was my birthday angel - she made sure my gift arrived on my actual birthday and made a big fuss over the phone.  It made me think of a picture of the two of us on my 10th birthday: I had just gotten my dream bike that she somehow successfully kept secret for weeks.  Looking at the picture, I can still hear her approaching on tip-toes, asking in her sweet voice "do you like your birthday bike, Meg?"

I didn't have any cards in the mail on Friday or Saturday or any day last week from any of my friends or family.  The phone wasn't ringing and I had no text messages or e-mails.  About a dozen or so people on Facebook did wish me a Happy Birthday, but I hardly know any of them.  The day rolled around and my dance card was totally empty.  No brunch, lunch or dinner invitations, no offers for dessert or cocktails.  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Maybe birthdays aren't supposed to be celebrated after a certain age?

I didn't want to feel pitiful, so the afternoon of my birthday, I sucked it up and started calling around to see if anyone would go out to eat with me.  There is a restaurant in Roswell, The Brookwood Grill, that I love and have loved for well over a decade and I know it's not the most sophisticated thing to crave, but all I wanted for my birthday was someone to go to my favorite restaurant with me and let me have the world's best chicken tenders (seriously, they really are amazing) and maybe some ice cream or coffee after.  But I couldn't find a soul willing to come to my side of town.  I had a few hesitant "can you meet us in midtown?" or "can you drive out to *insert far away suburb*?" and one, just one "sure, I can meet you for dinner but we have to go somewhere I can take my new dog" which relegated us to one patio at a quick service restaurant where I had soup and salad because that's all they have.  Not even close to my birthday wish.  At least I wasn't by myself, I guess.  I wish I was the type who can eat alone in a restaurant.  I just can't do it.

So, I went to Coldstone on my way home, bought a small birthday cake, and made at least half of my wish come true.  I got in, called my little sister, cut a piece of cake for myself, opened my present over the phone with her and we laughed and laughed and I thought "well, that wasn't so bad, maybe it's just all about perspective; I had a great birthday with the best sister in the world even if it was just over the phone."

But the phone call ends, the house gets quiet, and I eventually become acutely aware of how alone I am.  I started to feel sad about how uncelebrated I felt and I cried myself to sleep.  Presents, schmesents, I really just wanted some chicken fingers, a little ice cream, a hug and someone to ask if I liked my birthday.

Bird-Watching and Birds-Who-Watch

My grandmother passed away 10 years ago.  I really can't believe it's been that long.  I loved her so much and my heart's been broken ever since she passed.  She was cool, beautiful, eccentric, a real neat gal. 

She was an ice cream scooper at Crescent Park in Rhode Island as a teen in the 1930s, she met my grandpa when he was on shore leave during WWII and won a jitterbug contest one time.  She had a laugh that would make your belly tickle on the inside until it gave in, no matter what sort of mood you were in.  She loved wearing silly hats and working in her garden, enhanced every holiday to the last detail and made clothing and all sorts of swell crafts.  She saved pencils and rubber bands until the former was sharpened down to the ferrule and the latter was petrified.  And she loved to watch birds. 

She wasn't a member of the audubon society or anything but she would bird-watch for hours by the pool in the backyard.  She had a thing for cardinals and there was a little stained glass one suctioned to the sliding glass door that overlooked the porch where we all napped in the summer heat, the pool where we swam until our skin pruned and the garden she tended.  After she passed on and the house was sold, the bird was left on the door.  I have no idea if the widow who bought the house kept it there but I hope she did.  It just didn't seem right to remove it. 

I'm sure I'm anthropomorphizing a little but every now and then I'll see a red cardinal - in a tree or perched on something or flying somewhere and I think of my grandmother.  All of her quirks and characteristics, every birthday, every Christmas, every Easter egg hunt, every single experience, her smell, her voice, her laugh, it all flashes in a matter of seconds.  And it's usually when I need to remember that there was once someone who I loved so unconditionally and who loved me back even more. 

This morning I went into the kitchen to make some coffee and caught a glimpse of red out of my big kitchen window.  There was a little, vibrantly-bright-red cardinal hopping up and down the path to my front door from the stairs that go up to the parking lot, along the edge of my kitchen garden.  I stood there and watched her hop up-and-down and back-and-forth for a few minutes and then she just hopped off into the woods to join some other birds, I presumed.  And I kinda felt like my grandmother was just dropping in to say hi.

The Story of Carl & Ellie

I might as well come out of the dork closet early on: I am a HUGE Disney and Pixar fan.  If I could move into the Magic Kingdom, I would.  I'm not a pin-trader or a figurine-collector and I don't attend conventions but I am a professional memory-collector. 

The first movie I ever saw in a theater was Mary Poppins with my mom.  The first time I got scared at a movie in the theater was during Night Crossing, resulting in an unfortunate spillage of an entire box of red hots, with my mom.  The first 3-D film I ever saw was a Chip & Dale/Donald Duck cartoon with my beloved, dearly missed grandparents.  The first drive-in movie I ever experienced was a double-feature of Snow White and something else that I fell asleep during, with my entire family.  (They still have drive-ins here in the South and they were rampant in the late 70's/early 80's.)  My first record was Mickey Mouse Disco.  I remember walking down Main Street USA for the first time in 1981, holding my little sister's hand.  I had my first panic attack in a bathroom stall in Fantasyland behind Peter Pan's Flight on my 30th birthday.  See the pattern?

I didn't really intend this to be a love letter to Disney but, honestly, it's been my longest commitment next to my little family.  I have even refused to continue dating men who take a political stance against Disney.  (To be honest, I generally don't date men who boycott stuff just to be "cool" or controversial.)  And you don't want to get me going on what a visionary Walt was and how thorough the Imagineers are or how detailed Pixar is.

So as I was putting my blog together this morning, I had UP playing in the background and just hearing it playing brought back the flood of emotions I felt when I first saw it.  Only five minutes into the movie and I'm bawling, my throat is killing me and my heart is at once breaking for Carl & Ellie and in love with Carl & Ellie.  I'm not giving anything away but this movie fully captures the essence of life and love in just a few minutes of frames.  The most artful and tender way to tell a love story I think I have ever seen.  Ever.  More impactful than a two hour movie.  No dialogue, just the unspoken narrative of beautifully animated character development.  I. Was. On. The. Floor.

It amazes me how affected I am by this scene every single time.  It's just so expressive that I can't help but turn to mush.  The love Carl & Ellie have for each other and the love the animators must have had for these characters just shines through.  I need to remember to put this movie in when I wonder what it's all about, what the meaning of life is.  It's the story of Carl & Ellie.