On Birthdays, Thank-Yous, Temporary Color-Blindness and a little more Rent

So I'm now 34 years old, as of yesterday. In a lot of ways, I haven't felt any different since I was 24 years old...I think my brain might even still be about 14 years old...but according to time and my mother, who was there, I am 34 years old. I'm a year older than my brother-in-law Dave (until next August when he catches up again) and a year younger than my best friend Amy (until next November when she jumps to two years older than I am). I have caught up with liz and shared my day (in thoughts, anyway) with her beautiful daughter Mary Catherine, who turned three yesterday.

I spent a wonderful evening with my family last night in Georgia...we laughed until I'm sure the folks at O'Charley's were ready to throw us out the door! I also learned a valuable lesson: do not, under any circumstances, leave the table while you are out dining for your birthday. If you do, when you return, half of the restaurant staff will surround you, sing to you, clap loudly, and then present you with a birthday cake as your family looks on in wild amusement. Allegedly when they set this up with our waiter, my mother said to him, "She (me) is going to DIE." Then my father chimes in: "Actually WE might die." Ah, how well they know me. At least the cake was good.

Thank you to all that wished me a happy birthday. It was very surreal yesterday, as it's the first birthday in more than seven years that hasn't started with my husband kissing me on the forehead and wishing me a happy birthday. In fact, he forgot all about it until I reminded him that I was going to Georgia and he needed to plan to be there with the dogs for their dinner. Amazing. This time last year he could remember, now he doesn't. I guess our lives are detangling...or detangled already, at least from his perspective.

My dear friend Pat called me all the way from Philly to sing Happy Birthday to me. I got emails from two online friends vying to be the first one to wish me a happy birthday after midnight (Scott, you won...but Shan was close behind at 1am...thanks to both of you.). My most beloved Thug not only called and left me a birthday message, she blogged about my birthday!

And it goes on and on...thank you from the bottom of my heart. Just when I think that I'm alone, you guys remind me that I'm not.

I dyed my hair on Saturday. Ever make a mistake that is just huge, and you don't realize you have done it until it's just too late? Yeah, that was my hair color experience. Perhaps if I'm brave I'll take pictures of my noggin for y'all to see. I got the wrong color to start with...after I'd dyed it, washed it, dried it, and gawked at the orange head staring back at me from the mirror, I fished the box out of the trash. Wrong Color. Too Much Red. Hardly Any Brown. I guess it could be worse, it's not the purple color I had once when I left it on too long, and it's not the ORANGE color it was when I was in college (remember that one, liz?)...but it is so obviously dyed now...can you say mid-life crisis?

Finally, a little more Rent...I can't get the songs out of my head! To make matters more vivid, I read a stunning post in Dave's blog about how he spent his thanksgiving feeding the homeless at his church. He writes:

Coming away from this, I am not thankful for all the things I "have" and how fortunate I am that I don't live like that. I'm thankful that my eyes have been opened to how people very near to where I am typing live in developing-world conditions. I am thankful that I am in a position to do something about it.

Katy and I had a similar discussion coming out of the theatre after seeing Rent. I don't know the first thing about what it is like to live in their shoes...to live "that kind" of life...and while I am thankful, as Dave mentions, for all I have I feel at the same time guilty that I have so much and those in my community, my town, my world, aren't as fortunate.

I guess that's why I feel that Rent is such an important show...and why now, at this time of the year when I have a tendency to focus on what I don't have in my life, it is so important to look at what I do have, and rejoice.

Forget regret, or life is yours to miss...no other road, no other way, no day but today...