I don’t talk much about it, partly because I’m under the delusion that there are some that would be surprised to hear it, but I turn 46 later this year. It’s not a number that is a big deal by itself other than further cementing myself as “mid 40’s” but is worrisome for how close it puts me to “late 40’s”. No offense to anybody reading that has already reached the half-century mark but it feels like a pretty daunting number rapidly approaching. It doesn’t seem possible, to be honest.
Just as impossible to believe is the youngest turning nine this past weekend, one step closer to double digits. She was quick to remind me that ten would mean becoming a “pre-teen” and we all know what follows that.
Chaos. Chaos follows that. The fact that her older sister turns 21 this fall is something that I’ve simply decided not to even consider until absolutely necessary.
That sister was noticeably absent from the weekend’s celebrations, a previous week of feeling under the weather something that takes on more significance in today’s “better safe than sorry” environment where even the healthiest among us are supposed to be keeping their distance.
Also absent: friends, extended family, a bounce house. Three grandparents spaced across a back deck, an ice cream cake and a few buckets of fried chicken the best that we could offer in a year that just doesn’t seem to want to stop sucking.
There were other visitors, spread out over the previous couple of days. My sister in law and her two kids, a few other besties that made short but appreciated appearances. A few others dropped off presents and sang to her via video chat.
It wasn’t much but it will do for now, will have to I guess. As a nine-year-old approaching pre-teen status she is old enough to understand the reasons, old enough to make me proud of how well she hid what had to have been a disappointing time. She’s not the first of her friends to have flipped their calendar since the world closed down and we’re all cautiously hopeful for late summer pool parties and a fall full of social obligations.
And candles. In retrospect, the tradition of a kid blowing all over a cake right before it gets served to everybody else is probably something that should have been retired without needing a global pandemic but there was something a little sad about that solitary candle in a cupcake that served as substitute. She couldn’t tell us what she wished for of course, that would have kept it from having any chance at coming true, but I’ll admit that my vision got a little blurry imagining.
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Previously Published on ThirstyDaddy.com
