What a Difference a Decade Makes

my color-coded life a decade ago

I remembered it was my birthday the moment I opened my eyes this morning. At the foot of my bed is a trunk that once belonged to a great or great-great aunt, and I knew that inside I would find a stack of my old day-planners. I wanted to know what my life was life 10 years ago when I was turning 51--well, I have some idea what my life was like--but I wanted to see the minutiae of it on paper. My life was color-coded!!! I have no fucking idea what the colors meant--urgent!!do this or die, fun vs. not fun, fuck you I'm only doing this if I feel like it. I really can't make sense of it now.

But from reading through the notations a bit, I see that I was taking M back and forth to an array of doctors for a mysterious and scary ailment that eventually got around to resolving itself. That she had a broken a finger playing basketball again so there were doctors for that too. C was driving her own self here and there, but I was shuttling M to a billion things in addition to the doctors. There were law firm events, and lots of nights out to Clippers games and the theatre and a certain amount of stress as to whether the Someone could actually take the time to go to these things. I was going out with friends and doing theatre myself, and my, my, my life was a whirl.

My calendar today as I turn 61, has nothing that needs writing. The daughters (one with a husband!--now that's a momentous change from a decade ago, no?) are both here and we will go to the farmer's market. There is a birthday dinner being planned (hooray for the daughter who married a man who loves to cook AND bake,) and I really should go to the supermarket because my mother is almost out of gin and vermouth. Mom really ought to have a martini on my birthday, don't you think?

I saw the sun rise on this day that I turn 61, and gave thanks for being here to see it. And as the water turned pink I read this:

 “Forgiveness is giving up all hope of a better past.” In that sense, forgiveness is really not about someone’s harmful behavior; it’s about our own relationship with our past.

Okay. Happy Birthday to me. Good-bye 2003, etc. I'm closing your cover. Back in the trunk you go.