Senseless B-Day Sarcasm : Celebrate

 

 

Once upon a time, there was a little girl with light blonde hair.

More than anything else, she wanted a pony. 

For her birthday, her mother made a white dress with a well-starched, itchy crinoline. 

She doesn’t remember what she received that day….possibly a rash and the usual pack of white underwear.

 

By the time she was 17, she looked a lot like her mother…

…but she still thought underwear was a crappy birthday present.

When she was 20, she had long brown hair, liked funny pants, and no longer wanted a pony for her birthday.

More than anything else, she wanted to marry Mr. Right. 

For her birthday, the universe gave her this: 

He was sober for one week during their year-long marriage, and gave her something that itched worse than the crinoline.

Far and wide, she searched for her prince, and found someone with diabetes who could not have alcohol.

They had two children together who looked just like him…

…and then he died 10 years after marriage because he smoked 4 packs of cigarettes a day.

What was she to do?

She went to college for a degree in rehabilitation psychology and met another older student. 

He did not drink a lot.  He did not smoke.   They were married for 4 years.  They did lots of fun things like go on geology field trips together…

…that he complained about the entire time.

Men who do not drink or smoke may still be endowed with the temperament of an active volcano.

What does a 42 year old woman having a mid-life crises do?

She discovered that having 3 boyfriends and a cranky husband is too much work, and married a man 17 years younger.

Armed with a degree in Rehabilitation Psychology, she had a new goal… 

…her own office with a window

She spent 4 years with a man who worked 3 months during their entire marriage and learned a very important lesson. 

Great sex does not make a marriage. However, if you also work 10 hours a day, it does leave you exhausted. 

She had to choose between keeping her job or her husband.  Her children were in college and, at the age of 46, she lived alone with 3 dogs and 2 cats.

Rare was the time her children came to visit.

The day her divorce was final, she left her attorney’s office with a bad headache, heading for home in a vehicle she was told required $300 worth of work on the air conditioning unit.

She could do nothing about the A/C, but the stabbing pain assaulting her head had to be addressed.  What was she to do?

The man she met that day is a very private person.  She would love to share more about him, but she wants to live.

Here is a small vignette of the man she met that day.

He asked her what was wrong, and she proceeded to unload upon him every problem in her life since childhood.

Being a practical sort, he asked about the one thing he might possibly be able to fix:  Her car A/C.

That, he accomplished in under 15 minutes.

He scribbled his phone number on a scrap of paper and said, “Call me.”  

She did so that fateful night in August 1996. 

He wasn’t her prince. 

He wasn’t Mr. Right. 

No, he was better. 

He was always there when needed, he had a job, and every time she asked him to pick something up at the store, he not only remembered but bought her 10 of the same thing.

Did she finally get a pony?

No.  Her best friend had horses for 30 years.   Once she learned they’re too expensive and take a lot of work, she understood how greatly it resembled having a husband 17 years younger.

But — at the age of 67, one dream came true:  An office with a window! 

She recently asked her son to take a picture of her office.  He took this:

One shelf — inside a 9 x 12 office — holding a 2-year-old picture and one of the birthday presents he gave her.

She jests about having a son unable to follow simple directions, the college professor who speaks 3 languages fluently, but she is ecstatic that her family traveled from California and Georgia to celebrate her 70th birthday. 

They took her out to lunch, and went to St. Augustine together so her granddaughter could have her dream of seeing Ripley’s Believe it or not.  They discovered it is highly overrated, but afterwards they had fun playing putt-putt golf and eating ice cream together.

Here is a picture taken in their motel room as “the birthday girl” played scrabble with her sister while teaching her granddaughter how to play it, too.

The moral of this story? 

24 years with a reliable companion, a family who loves her that includes 6 dogs, and the world’s best job:  No pony in existence can top that dream.