An In-Between Birthday

I swear I was not fishing for readers to comment on my post last night by saying that no one reads except for Greg. I hope it didn't seem like I was throwing a little pity party with my statement. I seriously could not believe that no one commented to make fun of me after divulging my embarrassing secret is all. Thank you for reading (and for telling me you read...that was very kind of you.)

So today was my birthday. It was very nice and I couldn't have asked for a better day all thanks to Daniel. He was thoughtful enough to take off work for the day even though I didn't ask for it off. Luckily my shift was just an "on call" and when I called in to see if they needed me they told me I wasn't needed. Perfect! We started off by surprising Daniel's dad at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon where he was named the Grand Marshall of Gladstone's Gladfest parade. It was a really sweet moment. Then we had lunch at The Farmhouse in City Market. Oh and I forgot to mention that when we got in my car this morning there was $5 on my windshield. At first I thought someone had hit my car and this was their "sorry" note. Is it horrible that my first instinct to something kind is that it is purely restitution for something bad? Then I thought maybe Daniel had put it there. Nope. So I'm not sure who the anonymous $5 is from, but it was fun and kind of exciting. I later spent that $5 to purchase cupcakes for me and Daniel from Baby Cakes after lunch. We headed home and I grabbed the book Daniel got me for a mid-afternoon read. Since we are adjusting to a new budget I am trying to save money where I previously would have spent without thought. As a result when the third and final book in the Hunger Games series came out, instead of purchasing it, I've been putting in time at the bookstore chipping away a chapter at a time. Daniel surprised me with the book at 12:01 last night knowing I would want to read it before bed. Now that I own it I get to read it whenever I want instead of when I have a spare hour to spend at the bookstore. So I read about 5 pages today before crashing for a cloudy day, post lunch nap. A birthday nap is the best kind of nap because you have no where to be and no one to tell you to get up because it's your birthday and people are usually pretty good about letting you do whatever you want on your birthday (like writing a run on sentence). We went to the West volleyball game to hang out with Young Life kids and then got ready for dinner. We went to Julian in Brookside. A friend from high school was our waiter and the food was just as great as the personal service.

I'm so grateful for family and friends who called, sent cards, sent text messages, and wrote on my facebook wall. (How great of an idea is the birthday reminder on facebook? Seriously every year I look forward to the online well wishes from friends. The cumulative effect of that many "happy birthdays" gives me the warm fuzzys.) I'm especially grateful for a husband who was thoughtful enough to take the day off work, take me out, buy me my favorite book, as well as the necklace that I try on every time I go into his store but never said anything about...he's good. Throughout the day he kept asking me what my ideal day would be. Because we love people questions like this usually end up being answered not by what we would do but rather by who we would be with. Trying to answer this question made me articulate the "in-between" stage I'm now in. We have lots of friends, but not one specific group we always hang out with. We have small groups of friends, but those groups aren't friends with each other. If I were to invite my friends to a dinner together I would be more concerned by everyone meeting one another and hitting it off with each other. During my ideal day answer I found myself listing off friends from college because this is the last time I remember us having so many mutual friends and being part of a group of people who all hung out together. I miss that. But I am 29 and some of my friends have kids and some do not. Some are married and some are not. Some live in the city and some live in the suburbs. Some go to church and some do not. This post college life stage looks different for everyone. In college everyone is in basically the same boat. After college there are so many more options like marriage, kids, career, dwelling and the time line varies for everyone. I have friends my age who are finished having kids and we haven't even started. I have friends my age who aren't dating anyone let alone married. This is an in-between stage. I wonder when or if it will level out again. At 40 is everyone suddenly in the same boat again? Probably not but who knows.

I like the diversity of my friends and our different time lines, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I'd love to have a solid group to belong to again. I'm excited to see what this year has in store and at the core of that the people I will share it with and the relationships that will develop.