There are only a handful of birthdays I get sentimental about, none of them my own. My mom and her siblings treat theirs like national holidays, which always strikes me as absurd, particularly an uncle’s custom of taking an entire week off work to commemorate his birth. (Is there really that much to celebrate?!) In a few days I’ll turn 41, an occasion I expect to observe in the usual way: with a slightly rueful, but mostly satisfied sigh of “One year closer to death.”
The first person to wish me a happy birthday each year is typically my best friend, who often messages me at midnight. He turned 47 recently and I’ll probably feel weirder when he turns 50 than when I do. Where have the last 25 years of our lives gone? I had the same thought when Almost-Girlfriend turned 40 a few months before I did: how did we get so old?
My mom watches the clock as it nears the exact moment I entered the world, minutiae no one else has ever cared about with the exception of my astrology-crazed ex. (I assume anyone reading this is older and jaded by experience. On the off-chance you’re young and naive, avoid dating anyone who fervently believes in astrology or tarot.) My dad probably couldn’t tell you the time of my birth, but he still remembers the NFL playoff game he watched at the hospital. As my parents and I get older, I wonder how much longer that will last.
I always assumed I’d be a mom by the time I was 41. So did Crankenstein, supposedly, who’s not that much younger than me. It was one of the primary reasons we got married. When my ex decided a few years into our relationship that she didn’t want kids, she was initially reluctant to tell me, worried it would change how I felt. But I didn’t give it a second thought; my future was with her. And then, when it suddenly wasn’t, the only distant light I could make out in the darkness at first was the possibility of adopting a child.
It seems unlikely to me now that Crankenstein and I will adopt, and neither of us will have biological kids, so I go down the mental checklist of what-ifs. What if I’d been straight like Best Friend and we had an ill-advised relationship, complete with child? What if my sexuality was unchanged but we hadn’t been so adamant about not passing along our respective DNA, and we’d gone the turkey baster route against my doctor’s warnings? If we can go back in time and magically alter things, what if two women could reproduce together?
My former partner used to get upset that she couldn’t knock me up. She regarded it as a personal failing rather than a blameless biological fact, and it pained me that she experienced any angst over something so trivial. But privately, I understood — it made me a bit melancholy, too. I loved her so much that I wanted more than one of her. That was also how I felt about Crankenstein, who wasn’t quite as sentimental in return: she said she’d never have a moment’s peace if she had to worry every time a child of mine had a stomachache.
When I turned 13, my mom’s sister made a special card, a pamphlet welcoming me to this newest phase of life. On the subject of boys, she advised that any who didn’t want to kiss me were either geeks or gay, and any who did were perverts. Her prescription? “Stay away from them entirely until 21.” Here we are, 28 years later — and 20 since I turned 21 — and though I had no trouble staying away from boys, I find myself married to a gay geek (albeit one who is affectionate). Some might argue I’m a gay geek myself. These days, Hallmark probably has a card for that.