My Favorite Birthday

Today's my 37th birthday. We had plans to drive to Nashville and see Morrissey at the Ryman, but the poor man's been hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer. Instead we're staying in town and have cheap and fun plans for the day.

I want to share with you one of my favorite days ever: my 18th birthday. It was 1994. I spent the day with my parents (friends had had a party for me the night before). We went to see Shadowlands, the C. S. Lewis biopic starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. Afterward we went to what was at the time my father's favorite burger place in Montgomery, Flip's. There, my parents surprised me with a plane ticket to spend spring break back in Ohio with my best friend Chi.

I'm sure other things happened that day, but what I remember most was spending it with my parents, feeling some freedom that I was 18 (even though in Alabama the legal age of adulthood is 19) but wanting to connect with them on a deeper level, maybe because I felt a little bit "adult" in the moment.

My kids are at their dad's this week. and they called me at 6:37 am to wish me happy birthday. It eased the heartache of knowing I won't get a similar call from my father this year.

I'm going to enjoy spending this foggy day with my love, grateful that 37 years ago, in heavy snow in Omaha, Nebraska, Patty gave birth to a baby girl, to whom Jim gave an unconventional name.