Annual incremental

When I was born on December 2nd, 1963, JFK had been dead for less than two weeks, Hitchcock was enjoying the cinematic success of The Birds, the Soviets had sent their first woman into space and Alcatraz prison had been closed after 29 years. None of that made much impact on me as an infant.

Funny, that. Forty four years later, still none of it does.

What has made an impact on me is the fabulous and not so fabulous people who have come and gone in my life, and especially the ones who stayed; the small accomplishments I made; the times I tried and failed and the times I tried and succeeded; the opportunities I didn't take, the ones that turned out to be more fun and personally enriching than I could have dreamt and made me strong enough to play a hand of cards that came with big challenges attached and major potholes in my way.

I grew into a selfish, opinionated, morally responsible, intelligent, sometimes compassionate woman with a savage bite behind a fun and friendly exterior and an over-weening sense of responsibility for the welfare of those she loves. My friends, almost without exception refer to me as a bitch in a voice filled with equal amounts of love, trust and exasperation. Some get carried away and throw in phrases like "stubborn" "pig headed" and "a pain in the ass" and mutter words like "infernal" and "stupid" and occasionally even "wrong", such terms of endearment that can cause one to go all gooey inside. I'm a sick bitch, after all.

And, while I may never have been lucky in Love, I have been lucky in those who have loved me in whatever capacity we have shared our lives.

Poor bastards.

Age has no great hold on me and 44 is just another number, a palindrome at that. But at least it's a number that my poor shredded brain won't have trouble remembering, being the same in either direction. It's just a shame I don't like what it represents to the me inside of me.



But I'm still bloody gorjus

Happy Birthday, Me.