Birthdays, Disappointment, and Becoming Writing Material Are Inevitable

I turned 37 Tuesday. Even though I’m not really “old,” I will say, as Dr. Seuss once wrote, “How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it’s afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness, how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

I had a good day most of the day. One of my English classes even sang “Happy Birthday” to me at the beginning of class—just before I chastised the brunt of them for not having already completed an assignment due the day before.

My greatest anticipation, however, all day long was going out to dinner with a good friend, one I have known for 20 years. Our outing had been planned for a couple of weeks.

It was supposedly pre-arranged that I would attend a professional workshop after school and then we’d meet at a restaurant. The logistics were set.

After my meeting, however, a phone call revealed he had changed his mind. It was almost 6:00—already dark, and It was too late, he said, even after an offer to pick him up. I was crushed. Mind you, this was the same friend whose birthday I celebrated last year by taking him out for Chinese, despite the fact that Chinese is my very least favored cuisine. But I digress. No one’s keeping score.

I went ahead and continued dinner plans. I stopped by my mother’s house on the way to pick up the birthday card she had for me. She could tell I was visibly disappointed.

“Don’t be sad on your birthday,” she told me. “Life’s full of disappointments.” She then gave me a beautiful card, which read in part: “I loved teaching you things when you were a little girl, but did you know how much I was learning from you at the same time? Seeing your reactions to the world, listening to your fresh, new outlooks, and sharing in things that were important to you taught me a lot about the responsibilities—and joys—of being a parent..."

As for me, I was still learning, it seemed, which is, how it should be, I suppose. Sometimes, though, the learning hurts, as one of the lessons of life is that nothing is ever perfect. Sometimes friends disappoint you—just hopefully not on your birthday.

To exacerbate matters, my brother had not called me. Every year, my brother Greg, the younger of my two brothers, calls me—generally at 6:18 p.m., the moment of my birth. He recalls it well because my mother’s went into labor in the middle of the day, and 11-year-old Greg had to go call Dad at work.

My father, driving at speeds of up to 110 miles per hour, rushed my mother and brother to Baptist Hospital in Memphis. Perpetually late, I kept them waiting until evening, after which Greg and Dad were quite hungry. My sister Cathy delivered a fast food meal of hamburgers and French fries, which Greg remembers very deliciously.

But at after 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, he had not called. Although I had received numerous birthday wishes during the day, when one of your best friends backs out of birthday dinner, and your brother fails to extend the normal phone call, the mood becomes diminished.

So I called my brother. I discovered he had been oppressively sick—so sick he could hardly speak and had not attended work the past two days. I didn’t feel as slighted.

Nevertheless, I returned home, settled into comfortable sweats, coiled under a throw on the couch, and proceeded to soothe my woes. I vowed I would never again take out my friend who backed out on my birthday for his birthday, and I would never invite him over for dinner and conversation, which I do regularly.

I’m sure with time, those wounds will heal. They always do. I just have to learn that, as my mother reminded me, others don’t always behave in ways you expect. And my friend, in turn, will have to learn that one of the consequences of making friends with a writer is that you are always fair game, always potential fodder, for future writing. Like birthdays and disappointment, it, too, is inevitable.