29

I’m 29 and one day. My birthday was yesterday. It’s left as quickly as it came and didn’t leave me visibly changed – but nevertheless a year older.

I sometimes wish I felt more like I did when I was a kid. When birthdays were something you looked forward to for months. When birthdays were inviting class mates home for cake and hot chocolate. When birthdays were about mountains of presents – either at breakfast or brought to you in bed. When birthdays were about looking different, because the difference between 10 and 11 is HUGE.

Yesterday I got up, went to work, left work, drank a cup of tea with my parents, watched half an episode of Lost, had (what seemed to be an endless number of) conversations on the phone with relatives and friends wanting to congratulate me, got take away once J got home, ate, drank coffee with J’s sister who came by with a present, did the dishes, put together the layered raspberry cake for tonight, brushed my teeth, went to bed and rested my head on my new pillow (courtesy of my parents), Zzzzzzzzzz.

As you will have realised reading my little recap of yesterday, I did not bring class mates home for cake and hot chocolate. I can’t say that I have looked forward to the day for months. Mountains of presents would be exaggerating, but I’m not complaining – I did get my share of presents and good ones too. And if there’s a visible difference, I have yet to discover it.

But yesterday did in one way resemble my childhood’s birthdays: I had way too much cake! Cake for breakfast, cake at work, cake with my parents. I had a total of 5 (!) different cakes yesterday and though each piece was small, it was still sugary and by piece 3 and forward from there a little too much.

I wonder if Chelsea Clinton had 5 different kinds of cake yesterday…