Today is My Birthday and I Am Forty-Thirteen!!!

How can this baby be 53? This photo is of me when I was about a year old and also, apparently, a little boy. I have been staring at this photo - and wondering how it is possible that I have had a whole life between the time this photo was taken and today, as I sit at my computer in my pink fluffy bathrobe with my cup of coffee and blackberry close beside.

There is comfort in knowing that everyone else from the high school graduating class of 1975 - yes 1975! - is also in their extremely late 40s. Or celebrating the 23th anniversary of their 30th birthday.

Or 53.

It really doesn't bother me to be 53. Much. But I have to wonder at the fact that it is highly improbable that I have another 53 in me. And that is weird - that one day, the world will actually spin - without me in it. Or rather, technically, with me in it - but 6 feet in it and not as an active participant.

So I have begun this personally significant morning ironically, by pondering my own mortality. But before I have a chance to go too deeply in the wrong direction, iTunes jumps in to save the day by presenting me with George Harrison, who reminds me: "Here comes the sun". (Doot 'n doo dah...)

As quickly as George can say "the ice is slowly melting" I am refocused on more productive thoughts and I think about what I am doing at this very moment - writing a post for my blog. It occurs to me that probably everyone of us has a book in us. My life has been a real roller coaster but the ride has been, for the most part, memorable. One year ago today, I was luxuriating at the Ojai Valley Spa with a day of treatments that had been given to me by my girls for my birthday. In this peaceful state of mind, reading a book called "The Dream Giver", I decided to start a blog to sort of put on paper all the things going through my head as I dealt with the loss of my job. I went home and googled "how to start a blog" and on June 22nd, posted my first entry. Along the way, I have picked up some readers who have, they tell me, related. And that is really great and validating. But the best thing about it is that I now have a years worth of personal reflections that my girls will have. And maybe it will mean something to them. I have a little handmade book of paper designs made by my grandmother in 1906 when she was 6 years old. And I treasure it. My kids may not care but I think they will. I would have given anything to have had something like this from my mom. Or my dad. Maybe he still will.

So today I am a year older and my blog is a year old. Maybe I'll keep writing until I am forty-twenty. Or maybe forty-thirty. And so, you may be thinking: "Oh will she ever shut up?" Well, so long as I am in my forties, no, apparently.