cheers to 37!
Birthdays are a big deal in my family, there was always balloons, a special lunch of my favorites then a special dinner with my whole family, all my cousins and aunts and uncles with more of my special foods and drinks. It was never fancy large themed parties or anything, it was intimate to the thirty odd people in my family. There was always cake. That made our birthdays. Deliciously home made iced cakes. My mother is the best baker and cook so everyone relished in celebrations where her cooking was served. We’d eat, I’d blow candles then we’d all hang out, I’d play with my cousins or as we got older, it became a time for us to catch up. It was glorious and full of bright joyful energy. All wrongs forgone, forgotten, love spread and grasped on when we were together.
As I left home, the celebrations were no longer a mainstay on my birthdays. They morphed into something more manageable or acceptable to my Daniel. He didn’t understand how important it was for my birthdays to be big celebrations and I failed to properly communicate for fear of appearing juvenile or self indulgent. For the ten years we’d been together he would cook up different means of celebrations; quiet dinners, expensive jewelry, trips and vacations never just hitting the mark quite right. Though I was entirely appreciative of his efforts, there was something more that I missed, my family, my troop of thirty that were loud and joyful and full of life. I missed the chaos and the noise.
On one of his most recent, very meticulously planned escapades to celebrate my thirty seventh birthday, he planned a trip for our family of four to Nashville, Tennessee. Music City USA is the perfect nickname for this beautiful city that has revived me time and time again in my feet planting on its asphalt. I would be in a trance whenever we walked up and down Broadway. The musicians lugging the black cases of their double bass, guitars, violins and roadies wheeling equipment in an out of the bars. They all fed life into my eyes and my limbs. The music flooded the fog of drunken joy and idiocy. It’s all consuming and I loved every ounce of it. People constantly cheering and laughing, street performers of award winning stature. The energy filled my being, reviving what I didn’t know had died. The resuscitation in my feet tapping and disguised gentle skipping down Broadway , my eyes just scanning all around not wanting to miss any of it to fill the jar in my soul. A smile would not leave my face. A little skip, hip swinging saunter to the every changing sounds as we passed each restaurant, bar or store. The soul of Nashville roused me from my lull in spirits. Line dancing at the Wild Horse Salon was something we did before children and made well to join in the line dancing there every single time, now with our tireless children. I loved watching Nashville seep into their skin. My big birthday gift was a signature live show at the Grand Ole Opry where I sang along and got lost in wine and song and the force of the legendary venue.
Arriving to the conclusion of the night, no cake, no iced cake. We ended my birthday there and ushered in my thirty seventh year with a glass of rich red wine and a full kiss followed by a legendary brawl of the spouses. We laid our babies in bed snoring from all the action of the day as I cried about him missing the mark with the celebrations that although I appreciate as being amazing and special an experience, it was not at all what I wanted for my birthday. “I am lonely Daniel, so lonely because you don’t even know me. It’s my birthday and I feel empty inside.” My big and large hurtful declaration drew tears from his eyes. He felt like a disappointment. And I felt like a dick.
I held him close, “ It’s not you at all, I know you have done this to make the best of things. I appreciate it all. Theres something wrong with me. I’m so sorry.” I rubbed his head to sleep and grabbed the hotel key card, headed straight down to the bar.
Nursing the most expensive red wine at the bar in my solo celebration, I eavesdropped on a group of women laughing and talking. I longed for my family a million miles away, I longed for my friends spread all over the world.
These ladies were here post party celebrations and they were hilarious. I couldn’t help but laugh too. The wonderful cheer in their voices filled my cup as I pondered the coming year in my life. ” Do you think she should be waiting on a man?” I looked up from my wine glass to find a gorgeous dark haired slender woman awaiting a response from me, her thick lashes blinked for an answer. This was intriguing, conversation free of sleep schedules and school choices , “Absolutely not. You’re gorgeous, I don’t know what you do but from the sounds of it you sound successful. Why wait, I’d go for what I want if I was you.” That was my in, they invited me to sit closer and join them in their chat, we hung out like old friends, five of us. In my solitude I had once again chanced upon comfort from strangers.
We stepped outside as the bar was closing down and shared some smokes, I hadn’t had one in six years, but this seemed the perfect occasion for it. I laughed so hard with these women, my birthday felt complete. In the company of these women I had never met, and probably will never meet again, a gouge in my heart was filled with icing. Sweet and full and comforting. The hole that had been there had nothing at all to do with Daniel’s poor birthday planning. It wasn’t something that he could’ve recreated. But here, with these women I felt whole even in those simplest of moments I welcomed my thirty seventh year on this world, on the spirited asphalt of Nashville. Comfort, though many a times feels far from reach or even non existent, have come to find me in the most unexpected ways even if in impermanence, those feisty strong women lit a fire in me to live, to will to live in the most opportune and full of ways. ‘I love you’ was not uttered but our brief time together delivered the experience I was lost for.
Unexpected and warm.