Yesterday my daughter was talking about her birthday. She is already making a list for what she wants for her birthday this coming February. I don’t know if she realizes that she is skipping right over Christmas of if she simply realizes that she won’t possibly get everything on her Christmas list. Of course she still believes in Santa so she probably was just mentally counting all her bootie.

Usually the conversation starts out like this:

“Guess what’s after Christmas, Mom”

“New Years” I say.

“Do we get presents on New Years?” Daughter will ask.

“No, but it’s really important to be quiet on the first day of the new year, in fact it’s a great day to spend with your father.” I tell her

“Guess what’s after Christmas?”

“What’s after Christmas?”

“My Birthday!” Daughter says excitedly.

“No, my birthday, then your brother’s birthday and then your birthday” I remind her.

She doesn’t really care about all these other birthdays but since daughter and son both have a birthday within four days of each other, and her birthday is after his, we are caked out. I still make two cakes but there is always half of his left over. Last year I got balloons for son’s birthday, I would have gotten them for her too but his were still up and they said “Happy Birthday”. Yeah, I know, but he didn’t care to play with them, she just wanted more.

Anyway, I got to thinking about my birthday. Mine is in January and usually by December I have already aged myself. I suppose it’s just easier to start getting used to that higher number a month or two in advance.  I never used to do this but my ex#2 always did and the habit stuck.

So I am in the shower yesterday thinking about my birthday and I realized I wasn’t sure how old I was.  I thought I was 44 and was fine with that number except I knew I was not going to be 45 next month. That just wasn’t happening. It seems like yesterday I turned 40 so there was no way 45 had already snuck up on me.  Also my brother had just turned 45 or 46 last month (I’m not really sure about his age either) and he is two years older than me so it didn’t seem possible. So I had to do the math.

I was born 1/17/1966

That makes me 43 for the moment and not 44 like I have been telling everyone, for nearly the last year, who asks.

They don’t usually ask, that would be rude, but I do because I like to compare myself to them if they are the same age as me (only if I look younger).

I have been nearly high on this information for the last day. I don’t usually care about my age but I am still surprised to find that things like Live Aid or the fall of the Berlin wall was 20 years ago. It seems like they just happened. Even 9/11 was almost ten years ago. Time flies and it seems to speed up as we get older.

Realizing I am a year younger is like finding a $100 that had been tucked away and forgotten about. It was always there but I had forgotten about it and now it is like free money.

I got a free year.

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