The occasion had been marked quietly. Just dinner with Bev. My mother baked me a cake. My mother has baked me a cake for each and every birthday I’ve ever had. But I have never had an actual birthday party since I was a child. And being a December baby, I’d never had a birthday barbeque, or a lawn party thrown in my honour.
I wanted one. If only once.
So, I set about throwing myself a party. I made a Facebook event page, calling it MY 50.5 BIRTHDAY BASH, and set it exactly six months after my actual half century.
I invited most people I knew and liked, those people who’d been my friends for years or in years past, some of those I worked with. Then I sat back and crossed my fingers to see who would accept the invitation. My ego got a bit of a boost when Barb Strum, Bev’s closest friend accepted the invitation seconds after I posted the event. Other acceptances leaked in from time to time. I will not say that the event filled up. I’ve never had a wide circle of friends. Secretly, I hoped that the party I was throwing myself would not be a social shunning. My self-esteem was not at its highest at the time. I even went so far as to invite the toxic friend, offering an olive branch, hoping that it would be accepted, still not sure if our flagging friendship was my fault. Like I said, low point in self-esteem.
I got about thirty acceptances, altogether. Not bad, I thought, chalking it up to my having such a small circle. I was jealous of those people who can gather in over a hundred guests for such an event, but my family was not large, either. But I was pleased, if not thrilled.
The day grew near. I checked the forecast repeatedly. More so as the day grew nearer still. Twice a day or so. Rain was in the forecast. Of course there was. But there was a hint of hope. The day before was to be clear and sunny, hot. The day after was as beautiful. The rain might pass us by, I thought. The forecast will improve as we drew closer. It did not.
The day arrived, and it did indeed rain. Buckets fell. Cats and dogs. A river of overflow raced down my street.
Should I cancel? Would anyone come? I considered renaming the event DAVID’S HURRICANE BARBEQUE BASH. “Oh well,” I thought, “rushing out into the biblical deluge to get what I discovered I was missing.
People did come. Most came. And some brought gifts, even though I’d
specifically requested that no one do so. “It’s not my birthday,” I told them.
I’d even said so on the Event page.
I cooked the burgers and sausages and dogs in the rain.
Once that was done, I settled in to not be the host. Make your own drinks, I
thought. Entertain yourselves. I wanted to be a guest at my own party.
If you were there, thank you. You helped make my day.
If you were not, not to worry. Bev’s 50th BIRTHDAY BARBEQUE/HURRICANE PARTY was
much the same the next summer.
Some further good came from it. I rekindled my friendship with Henri and Sylvie for a time. They invited us to their anniversary party a few months later. And then they invited us to join them on a Mediterranean cruise a few months after. Ports of Call: Venice, Mykonos, Athens, Istanbul, Nice (Capri and Sorrento), Rome (Orvieto for us), Florence and Pisa, and Barcelona. It was fun, but we weren’t attached to Henri and Sylvie throughout the cruise; we were used to going it alone while on vacation, me even more so than Bev. They may have expected us to be by their side throughout, but that didn’t happen; but, at least it always gave us something to talk about during dinner.
For all that imagining, for all those flights of fancy, we, neither of us, had
any clue what was to come. Or what might become of us. We were just children,
after all, just starting out, an eternity before us.
It has been a symphony of happenstance, of cause and effect, and despite the
stumbles and setbacks, despite the pitfalls, it has been an adventure. It has
been a truly awe-inspiring and epic discovery of what it means to be me.
