Pollyism of the week
It was my birthday last week. Wasn’t a big one – just a teensy, middly one. I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t excited by it, though I wasn’t dreading it either. It just didn’t seem that important to me. Age is just a number, am I right?
Well, apart from some flowers arriving, it was just another day in the quirky life of me – every day of my life is a little bit crazy or a little bit goofy and a little bit too jumbly.
There are birthdays one never forgets, though. I remember five. It was a beautiful summer’s day and all my friends from Cornwall Road, Papatoetoe, were there. The thing I remember most vividly is Danny Haikaiti from next door giving me 50c, which in today’s money is like $10.
It didn’t take me long to work out what to do with it. I toddled down to the dairy and bought my very own family block of Cadbury Dairy Milk. That was back in the good old days when it was full of rich New Zealand cream. I can still remember how it tasted, which is rather sad as it’s nothing like the new taste of 2019.
I remember turning 12, and my very best friends sleeping over and playing murder in the dark. That was the last year I would ever know life without anxiety. With puberty came the puberty blues, but for me, it was pretty serious.
Yet that party was wonderful. I was in Room 4 at Maeroa Intermediate and to top it off, I was in Mrs Bain’s class with my best friend Louise.
The only other birthday that really stands out for me was 30. Yes, I’ve skipped a lot of birthdays, but all the others were good, great or indifferent. Thirty, however, was a red-letter birthday.
A few months earlier, I’d had a late miscarriage with my first son Matthew. Completely devastated, but dying to be parents, we put our names forward to adopt.
We met the young mother-to-be and all was ready to go. On my birthday, the baby boy was born, and we waited and waited for a call from the social worker. That night, there was a knock on the door and a look on her face that said, “She’s changed her mind.”
It was OK. I already knew she would. The pain I had felt losing my first son made me understand completely why a young woman would change her mind when she gave birth. I felt no resentment or even sadness. I understood.
Ten months later, I gave birth to my eldest son Tom and on it goes.
This year’s birthday involved a few hugs, a few cards, those flowers, and some Facebook and Instagram love. And of course, the best birthday gift is no drama. In fact, no drama is the best birthday gift from the gods!
Of course, I do love flowers too.