Hello 37

My birthday cake was a stale ginger biscuit and I loved it

caption...

Hello you,

In a few days I’ll be turning 37.

I happened to be with my family in June, so I asked if we could celebrate my birthday early.

We always make fun of my Mum for being so extra with birthdays and still treating us like kids. But of course, we love it.

She always likes to give us a bag of gifts with several things to open to elongate the ceremony. (Even if those things are items like a packet of crisps and a packet of biscuits which were in my bag this year).

Even to this day, she ALWAYS makes sure that the other sister has gifts to open too. Because she doesn’t want the other to feel left out. She now also includes gifts for the husbands and the pets.

We were sitting outside, together as a family, in the sun. A rarity these days.

I heard some conspiratorial activity in the kitchen and the tell-tale clicking of the gas stove ignition.

My sister then slowly walked out with what appeared to be a plate (no cake) with a single lit candle sticking out of it.

“Happy birthday to youuuuuuuuuu!”

As she neared, Mum informed me that it was, in fact, a stale ginger biscuit. “Because I needed to find something soft enough that a candle would stick into.”

It made us all laugh and I realised that I couldn’t have asked for a more thoughtful and memorable cake for my 37th.

I later found myself becoming conscious of how that was one of those mundane, ordinary moments that is actually the most beautiful and meaningful.

And I enjoyed reliving it, capturing it and layering it with the significance of being part of this messy, silly, flawed family.

“I get to have this day.” (cc Beth Kempton

I know how lucky I am to have both my parents around. And that I am around too.

I am lucky to see a more wrinkled face in the mirror each morning. And to be noticing how many bands from our teen era are going on reunion tours. The nostalgia is real.

As I took home my crisps, my biscuits, my nature books and my envelope of birthday cash (yes my Mum still does this too), I felt so loved. And I knew this was significant in the most ordinary way.

Father daughter walk in the park of my childhood

“Attention changes the texture of your life.”

Writes lina at The Stories Club.

“You begin paying attention to details that previously dissolved into the background. The specific way someone laughs when they are nervous. The strange dignity of an elderly man carrying tulips home on the train. The fact that every person in a café somehow looks deeply intellectual until you overhear the actual conversation.”

the real reason you’re not writing

I understand now that I am a very sensitive person. Sometimes that makes life incredibly overwhelming and too bloody much.

I really feel and experience everything. The good things too.

And how precious it is to be sitting in the sun whilst your sister’s adorable dog squeaks on a toy that was moments ago wrapped up in a birthday gift bag.

When you’re sensitive you can’t help but feel (or perhaps add) significance onto things.

It’s something I love about myself. It is the life of the artist.

And I would never change it.

Janelle, aged almost 37

x