All Growned Up in Introduction

No matter how old I get, I still get excited about my birthday arriving soon. Next week, I am turning 49, but it still feels just as thrilling as it did for me when I was turning 12. Now, mind you, I don’t get the special party or pile of presents to tease me until “after we’ve had cake” (and there’s rarely cake these days), but the kiddos, my mom, friends, and Joe do show me the typical birthday love in the form of greetings, cards, dinner, and a handful of very thoughtful gifts. This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you that it isn’t about the gifts, and I just love the outpouring of affection, but they do take time to select the special things they bestow upon me (that sounds so royal - not really me, but it’s birthday-apropos) so I acknowledge that and appreciate. Yeah, that’s the ticket…

A trend in my relationship with Joe is that most of the time, our gifts to one another take the form of an event we share together, like concerts (we have seen several hundred performances in these 3 1/2 years), special dinners, or other sorts of trips to places like beer or wine festivals, NYC, etc. It really is a cool thing that we naturally share so many interests. That happens when you end up dating someone you grew up being friends with! (Girls - let him out of that friend zone! Trust me!) This year, Joe has surprised me with tickets to see one of my favorite plays, Chicago, on Broadway. Sweet! If the weather is nice, which is hard to predict these days in Northeastern Pennsylvania, I’m looking forward to spending a nice day in the city as well. NYC is one of my “happy places”, though within the past few years it’s been nudged out of first place by Bethel Woods, the home of the original Woodstock. We go to several events there during the year - one of which will be a concert this August to see one of my absolute favorite guitarists (the boyfriend is my number one), Carlos Santana (along with the Doobie Brothers, another childhood favorite) - and the vibe there is truly peaceful. The scenery is positively gorgeous: you can see acres of lush, greenery for miles. Maybe it’s just me, but I feel calm as soon as we get around the bend toward the parking lot. If I want to do something relatively budget-friendly on a warm, sunny day, Bethel is my sanctuary.

I’ve never been to an actual Broadway show and paired with which show it’s going to be, I am over-the-top anticipating it. The icing on this particular birthday cake is, naturally, who I’m going with, and the fact that he came up with this idea definitely adds mucho bonus-round points. As much as I say that I’m “not a real girl”, because I’m not fancy and I don’t care about things that are supposedly trademark for us (I don’t buy any of that, do you?), I absolutely love it when he does something romantic like this. So, yeah… I am gushing that my “boyfriend” planned it for me.

Last updated June 11, 2019