The birthday

My birthday was a couple of days ago. I'm not big on birthday celebrations anyway (What??? You didn't know that already??!! :)) but I will readily admit that the influx of phone calls, emails and texts made me feel really good! Especially all those friends and relatives who took the trouble to make a short phone call to wish me. I've loved my 30s so far. It's been much better for me than my 20s. One of my good friends was surprised to hear this and she said "But, we had so much fun in our 20s!". Which is only kinda true, really. A lot of the defining moments and stages of my life happened in my 20s - the undergrad, the b-school, the career, the finding-of-the-soulmate, the marriage, and the mommyhood (yes my 30th birthday was the one I don't like to remember, I was in so much post-partum pain that day!). Several of my best friends are from my 20s. Yes, I did have a lot of fun. But I was still finding myself. I was still parroting the opinions and values of others. I didn't yet have my own voice, which came to me only after I turned 30. I wouldn't say motherhood was a defining transition point but it did hasten the process of me understanding who I am and what I wanted to be. I've done things my way, learnt not to let other's opinions matter as much as they used to, learnt to brush off criticism and learnt to speak up for myself. Just a matter of ageing and growing up, you say? Sure! But the fact is, I couldn't do any of these things when I was a callow 20-something.

So, the 30s are special in that way. Also, I think I look better now than in my 20s and also have a strong sneaking feeling that it's all downhill from here on, so that's another reason to be happy :)

I celebrated by not exercising (hey, its my birthday, I shouldn't have to do stuff I dislike!). Ads made me a cute card. He's been making it behind closed doors for the last 2 days, in fits and spurts. I was commanded not to peek inside his room, ever. He spoilt the surprise somewhat by popping up every now and then to ask me the spellings of "birth", "Aparna" and "dear". My "gift" was the contents of his piggy bank - some 10 rupee notes and several coins of foreign currency which S had discarded :)
A day after my birthday, he came and gave me the card that Y had made, along with him. They'd both forgotten about it! Kids!!!