Mostly, It Is For Me

I stare at the items in my Amazon cart: a pair of leather sandals, dark chocolate bark with nuts, a bag of sea salt caramels. I save two of the three for later and order just the caramels. Yesterday it was a bunch of tee shirts, added and then deleted.

A pair of overripe bananas caught my eye as I wrapped up work. “Give me the recipe for appam with rice flour and banana,” I exhorted ChatGPT, and it obliged. Twenty minutes later, a plate full of appams gleaming with nei sat on my counter.

Birthdays are an obsession. Mine, not his. For years I did what I wanted. I serenaded my man. I wrote paeans to the man he was in my life. I ordered tee shirts. Funny, indulgent and sometimes off the mark. Some years it was a tennis racket. Some others, it was bars of candy.

Inevitably, I would realize the celebration was me indulging myself, so this year I paused. I backtracked. I even considered not writing this post. Then, I caved.

I held out an appam when Saathi walked in the door. We all got ready and went out to eat, a miracle considering the teenagers and the various levels of social battery on a school night. I sat down to acknowledge the year that has passed.

We have watched our lives play out in theaters across the world. We have watched our kids inch their way to being almost adults. We have stopped apologizing for our non-intersecting passion projects. Most of all, we stand at the cusp of a year that will alter the dynamic of our family.

If our older kids follow the regular trajectory of every high school senior (which we hope they will), this will be our last year as a full family of five. Every birthday, every celebration feels weightier with that knowledge. I remember to take a picture as we leave the restaurant.

Grey hair, crow’s feet, plenty of smiles. The photo is not aesthetically pleasing, but it is joyous. So, tomorrow will dawn with me doing what I can to make his day special. Mostly, it is for me. And, I think I have made peace with it.

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