My Birthday Present

December birthdays suck. Overshadowed by the holidays, December birthdays are tossed aside like unwanted presents and ignored like the extra tug it takes to button your favorite jeans.

Growing up, my December 30th birthday was the worst. Stuck like a speed-bump between Christmas and New Year's, my birthday could never be celebrated with a classroom of squealing children (we were all on Christmas break), and time after time my American Girl-themed birthday parties had to be canceled due to Nor'easters.

This year, however, someone is finally making up for all of my Christmas-wrapped birthday presents and snowed-in parties. Because somehow, somehow, during a month that wasn't supposed to count, during a month off before I started with the RE, I was just given the most unbelievable birthday present ....


Happy 29 to me. I think it's gonna be a good year.

Talismans

In second grade, it was a blue rabbit's foot. I remember it was feathery soft, with a tarnished gold chain dangling from one end. It simply meant "luck," because back then, things were that simple.

In high school, it was a silver ring with a turquoise stone set in the middle of an eagle. My mom had bought it on an Indian reservation out West when she and my father drove across the country in a Volkswagen bus. I wore it on my pinky. It meant "boundless opportunities." It radiated heat.

In college, it was a dried rose. It was left in my dorm room by BumpMister on our first Valentine's Day. We were 19. It meant "promise." I have always kept it.

Today, it has multiplied to many. It is a tiny gold elephant that traveled from India in the pocket of a friend who hoped to bring us luck. It is a wooden string of Rosary beads purchased on a sweltering day at the Vatican by parents with a grandchild in their prayers. It is an unlabeled CD that buoyed a sister-in-law as she drifted through her own hard time.

Trinkets. Objects. Things. Items. Yet so much more.

Life. Friendship. Family.

Hope.

What is your talisman?

Black Clouds

The holiday season: It's supposed to be a time of slender candy canes and heaps of granulated sugar and mountains of Godiva chocolate. Santa is coming, champagne is chilling and presents are ready for unwrapping.

But above all the bustle you hear ... a rumbling. A storm. Black clouds forming on the horizon. Lightning flickering over your work party's holiday buffet. Why?

Because between Christmas and New Year's, a pivotal precipice is being mounted. A spiny peak of pain is jutting forward and cannot be ignored.

I am turning 29 in 19 days.

When I was younger, I thought my mom was so young for having me at 27. I would at least wait until 28 - I mean, come on. Let's be sensible. Fast forward to today, when the decision is totally out of my hands. 29 seems ancient.

Maybe it's not old to you. If it's not, I apologize. But let me tell you what IS old: This process. This endless guessing and waiting and hoping. This exploring and yearning and watching as others get what you've wanted for so long. This unfair, unfair, unfairness.

Friends, you know me. I don't normally get so down. But I'm tired. And the cloud is looming. And it's NOT fair. And that's all I can say tonight.

Oh Shhhicle.

Shi•cle [shy-kuhl] noun, verb, -cled, -cling.

-noun
1. any shitty round or series of occurrences that repeats or is repeated.
2. a recurring period of time in which certain shitty events or phenomena repeat themselves in the same order and at the same intervals.

Use shicle in a sentence>

My period came on the 45th day of my shicle this month.
Last week, I shicled all the way to the fertility clinic.
They told me to come back at the end of this shicle.
I feel like I'm shicling in circles and not getting anywhere.

Origin:
Middle English: shite
Latin: cyclus
BumpMister: CD 45: "wow, what a shitty cycle. it's a shicle. haha."

Yeah. Haha.