1. What I’m doing right now. I’m not at work. I’m in our favorite coffee shop, sitting across from my beauty-full wife who has stuck with me for a decade of changes, and we have the entire day together alone. From here we’re headed to another town to hit a couple book stores and then eat food that is not strictly speaking healthy but the happy chemicals in my brain tell me is oh, so good for me. There will be music in the car and good conversations throughout.
2. Who is getting here tonight. My best friend Melinda and her sister Bernadette are driving in from Chicago tonight to hang out with us till Monday. Which means I’m not going to be getting enough sleep this weekend, but it will be so worth it. There is good Ohio beer in the fridge and Oreos in the cupboard, so I think we’re ready.
3. Sunday. I turn thirty. I will get a good long walk with my best friend, and a good long walk with my wife, and play K’NEX with my daughter, and get to know Bern a little better, and I plan on it generally being an entirely affirming day. A lot of my friends don’t like their birthdays. I am not among them. My birthday matters to me. I like me, and I’m rather glad I get to live my life.
4. My birthday dinner. Sunday night I will cut up a bunch of different fruits and vegetables into little bowls, put tasty breads onto plates, pour dressings into containers and wine into glasses and then sit surrounded by people who love me as we talk and eat into the night, speaking beauty and truth and laughter. It really is the only way to celebrate your birth, I’m telling you.
5. I’m ready to turn 30. I’ll talk about this more in my post Monday. Until a year ago or so I thought this would be a tough birthday for me. But I am oh so ready to start a new decade.
I love your life-affirming attitude. I love my birthdays, too (and my twin sister’s), and I’ve had quite a few more of them than you have.