The most ordinary of birthdays.

“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.” 

― Paulo Coelho

.......

It will begin with the quiet sounds of paws on metal through a monitor designed for babies. She is my baby, I wore her in a sling made out of a turkish towel when she was six pounds, nuzzled in my neck.

I'll look at the clock and remind myself that I enjoy the early rising, that simple reminder almost as effective as the promise of a hot mug of coffee.

Dave who usually does not stir will have reminded himself the night before to notice my waking and say Happy Birthday. He already wished me a Happy Birthday Eve in his sleepiness three days ago, then realizing adjusted it to Happy-Eve-Eve-Eve.

I will open Bunny Blueberrie's crate first while Delilah gives me the look of a puppy who is already older than her years and would like to sleep past 5:30am. Bunny will bust out and run into my body, a crash of puppy love. I won't let them lick my face like the rest of the family, and they know this, but she has taken to giving my neck a lick or two.

Then she'll roll over and start to bite my hand, gently, playfully and I'll give her a toy instead while I look over to Delilah still deciding how she feels about us. I usually reach up for the latch and I wait, if her tail wags I open it, if she plops her head back down I wait and take Bunny out to pee.

When Delilah comes out it is clear she is the Queen, slowly stretching her front legs out while leaving the back ones behind her, long and unwilling to be moved yet. Then she will slowly come to sit in front of me and put her head down into my chest (she is as tall as I am sitting) and I will give her pets and say "good morning friend" until she collapses into a huge pile of dog on the floor, belly up, allowing morning to be true and belly rubs to be her exchange for less sleep.

The kids will come up or down (in this order: Eli, Evin, Chloe, Bobbie, AJ) after I've poured the first cup of coffee, 1/4 caffeine and the rest decaf. That little bit gives me focus without the headaches and exhaustion too much caffeine will leave me with. I will put some of my mushroom powder in and feel excited for the second cup that I'll be able to froth my milk for.

Chloe will give me the gift she ordered on her own (electric milk frother that actually works because my friend Chels has one) and everyone will want to use it to froth milk for hot chocolate and tea. I'll have made their lunches (croissants and cheese sticks, veggie chips and fruit) the night before so the morning will feel spacious and I can feel sleepy a bit longer. I might wonder how to get belly rubs too.

After the drive to Chloe's school I'll spend the hour before a call taking a shower and picking out a birthday outfit, then I've planned later in the day to do the things I've been putting off. Call for skin cancer screening, call about a bill I shouldn't have received, pay the electric bill, sort through a huge pile of mail.

I have decided to do this, on this day, because not having things hanging over my head, weighing on my gut, feels like the best possible way to enter an odd number year where change is coming fast and in the most ordinary of ways.

I crave this day, I've waited for this day.

Waking up into presence and the life I have crafted and can feel. Beginning with puppy noises and ending with snuggles from someone I love more, the simpler we become. As we are now more boring than ever (making room for teenage drama and angst-thank goodness), I have never felt more quiet joy in each day.

At night the almond flour cupcakes I'll have made with the kids on the Eve, with strawberry jam layered on the frosting and dairy free whipped cream topping the only somewhat moist almond cake, will join us on the couch for Netflix and Berry LaCroix and ginger tea with honey (made with almond milk in my frother).

Memories will pop up, photographs, like this one when I was 16 and in full perm gloriousness with first love's arm around me. He was the best first love a 16 year old could ask for. Memories will pop up as they already are of a million little fuck ups mixed into four and a half decades of trying to get something right until finally realizing nothing ever has to be right. 

And nothing has to be wrong.

I just need to see it, to feel it, to be there from the moment the puppy/baby monitor goes off to when we fall into the coziest bed at night as I turn it back on, listening the quiet hum of the stillness of a magical home, with a magical family, inside of all the magical cracks where simplicity and beauty fall through; the life I'm choosing to see.

I used to be terrified of becoming older, of my life having this arbitrary expiration date I couldn't reconcile. Then I stood next to my 99 year old grandfather and all I feel is joy. Pure joy at what is to come. There is this one spot on the highway when I drive Chloe to school in the mornings that sometimes I have a future memory of. The sun is shining and all we are doing is driving, not talking because we mostly don't. And I feel my 99 year old self remembering that moment, in the sun, in the monotony of the drive.

Why this moment? Maybe because it is the most uninteresting of all of them, and somehow that matters most.

A corner I've turned over and over adding up to miles and miles on the van. A young girl literally growing up beside me as I grow up beside her. That future memory of her turning off the radio because it is annoying or the dogs fighting over the bones in the back seat.

I just want to add beauty to this time.
And let myself be more loved than seemed possible at 16.
I want to be surprised by how different (or the same) my morning will be than I think about it being (this is new for me and this is everything).

I'm ready for you 45, I love you already.