Today is my birthday, so I am obliged to drone on about my vanquished youth. Yesterday I was 30, now I’m officially “in my thirties.” (Tic-toc-tic-toc, goes the biological clock. Some days, alarms go off.)
One card that I received from a family member included a cut-out magazine article of diet advice. That alone was enough to send me to the mirror, to inspect all those bodily areas that have thickened, dimpled, sagged, and wrinkled. I’ve been in denial for some months now, but I do believe that jowls are developing.
I remember when birthdays meant pure celebration. It was my special day, and I’d wriggle in the attention showered upon me by an adoring world. Presents! Cake! Acknowledgement that my existence matters! Gradually birthdays turned into milestones for self-reflection. Memories! Regrets! It’s all downhill from here!
I jest, of course, because that’s what you’re supposed to do when you are no longer officially cute. I would evoke more pity if I admitted that I still think of my birthday as my special day, even though I spent the beautiful day in the office, hunkered down in a cubicle that is 20 feet from a window, hunched over a laptop, re-writing technical documentation that I wrote 3 or 4 years ago, and then came home to scrounge together a dinner of salad and hummus, which I ate alone in an empty house while trying to read the newspaper through my tear-welled eyes. I jest, sort of.
Since tomorrow is Mr. Pinault’s birthday, I can deflect any unease about getting older onto him, because we’re very literally growing old together. What a comfort, to know that he is legally bound to love me no matter how jowly I should grow.
