The Girl with Two Birthdays

When I was little, I had a book entitled, “The Girl with Two Birthdays.” I had a lot of books, but this is one I remember clearly. It was smaller than most, so I couldn’t use it when I built my Little Golden Books towers – structures built like card houses that I would try (unsuccessfully) to reach to the ceiling of my living room before they would collapse. It was worn and pretty ratty-looking. The pictures were old-timey. Maybe it was a hand me down? Nothing about it was aesthetically or structurally pleasing, but I can visualize almost every page in my mind.

The heroine of the story was a girl who had not one, but two birthdays. Why? You got it. Because she was adopted. The first was to celebrate her true birthday, the second to celebrate the day she joined her new family. AM Homes talks about this dual celebration briefly in her memoir The Mistress’s Daughter. I remember it in theory, but not practice.

I am a birthday-celebratin’ kind of girl. I love them. I am mad at myself that I only started focusing myself and others on my birthday within this last week. I usually try to give at least a month’s notice.

So why, oh why, have I never taken advantage of my second “birthday”? I need to go check the back of my charm bracelet to even remember when it is. Oh, here it is, it’s July 18th (no, I’m not giving the year.) As someone who takes full advantage of any holiday to have a little fete, why is mid-July such a non-event?

As someone trying to have a baby of her own, I can see so many milestones: “Look honey, here’s the day your egg donor said yes!” “Oh, and here’s the date of when mommy and daddy watched you being put into mommy’s belly. Why of course we have pictures…” So many dates that we could build into historical markers. Or not. Now that we are moving towards our third attempt, I am leaning towards not.

And I guess that coincides with my thoughts on life and work and things in general. At work, I don’t really care to hear how hard you are trying or the steps you took to get there, give me a call when you have a finished product that you want me to review. At home, my ears will close if my dad starts to details all of the traffic issues encountered while making it over for a visit. You’re here now, right? All is well, right? Conversation over.

So maybe that’s it. Maybe I don’t care to dwell on the process of most things, or worse, start down that spiraling path of questions that the three month delay between today and July 18th brings up in my mind. The second “birthday” is a formality, a signing of papers, a part of a process that eventually led me to my family and who I am today.

Today is the day that I celebrate. Along with the rest of my life. With gusto. Especially now as we work towards adding another real birthday celebration to the calendar.