A Day (or Two) in the Life of Turning Thirty-Five

My "Turning Thirty-Five" journal:

Monday, June 4 (One day to thirty-five)

10:10 a.m.
I go to an ENT to get my ears cleaned out because I haven't been able to hear properly for about three months. The doctor says it is almost like I've been walking around wearing ear plugs everyday. He is right. I feel like a super hero with extra-sensory powers now. Is a surplus in ear wax a byproduct of old age? Actually, I have been dealing with excessive ear wax since my early twenties, so I will say no. It's not a byproduct of old age, just something weird that happens to me.

11:00 a.m.
I drive over to Best Buy to pick up a present for Dan. Wait, isn't it my birthday tomorrow?

"I think I'll order myself the Game of Thrones DVD set for your birthday."

"You're buying yourself a present on my birthday?"

"Yes," he hesitates. "I hope you like the other present I got you."

"Yeah, me too," I grumble.

Secretly excited about the new Game of Thrones DVD though, I offer to pick it up for him after my ENT appointment.

"It's my birthday after all. Maybe I'll even watch an episode with you tonight."

3:00 p.m.
I can't find my flash drive, the same flash drive that backs up my school computer. My school computer is getting re-imaged this summer, so this flash drive is somewhat necessary. I call Dan and freak out a little. He helps me retrace my steps to no avail. I am pretty sure I dropped it on my way out to the car on the last day of school. I reluctantly decide to go into my classroom the next day, on my birthday.

I thought I was done with school.

6:00 p.m.
By the time you reach thirty-five, restaurants are the only things that make a big deal about your birthday. I've been receiving postcards offering free meals and desserts for a month now. It's like the promise of diabetes and obesity tied up in a pretty bow and delivered right to your mailbox.

"You got some birthday cards," Dan said as he sorted through our mail.

"Yeah, people are finally starting to remember."

"Your birthday's not until tomorrow. You can't get mad at people for forgetting your birthday before your birthday."

Of course nowadays, 340 Facebook friends are also guaranteed to remember your birthday. That's kind of awesome.

10:30 p.m.
Dan and I are almost asleep after having finished the first episode of Game of Thrones about a half-hour ago. We hear a loud bang and a bright light shines through our window.

"Becky," Dan calls to me from what we have coined the office-spying-window, "someone knocked over our mailbox!"

Indeed someone had. Now I wouldn't know who remembered my birthday after all. The post office will definitely not deliver our mail tomorrow with the mailbox in that state.

There is a car parked in front of our driveway, shining its headlights into our window. It looks as though a couple of men with a bicycle are hanging out on the sidewalk, next to our fallen mailbox, but it is hard to completely see what is going on.

"Should I go out there?" Dan whispers.

"No. Didn't that crime dog ever teach you? Never talk to strangers."

Tuesday, June 5 (Thirty-five arrives)

7:30 a.m.
One of our neighbors calls to tell us how to get our mailbox fixed. Dan and I go outside to assess the situation. We are surrounded by neighbors. We don't really know our neighbors because we are slightly antisocial. But they are really nice. One neighbor even offers to weld the box for us. So Dan dismantles the box and newspaper tube and leaves the base.

"Did you do this in a drunken stupor?" another neighbor (the one neighbor I actually know) teases me.

"I think someone must have been in a drunken stupor," I say.

The man with the bright headlights the night before drops by and talks to Dan. Apparently, some kid on a bicycle had run into our mailbox. The man with the bright headlights had stopped his car to help the kid and was afraid the kid might have had a concussion. We didn't ask if the kid was in a drunken stupor.

9:00 a.m.
I go to my school to look for my flash drive, hoping I just left it on my desk. I didn't. But my computer has not been re-imaged yet, so I back up everything onto another flash drive. Also, I remembered earlier that our P.E. teacher is holding Zumba classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the school this summer. I stay for Zumba. I also see several of my students who are attending summer school. And I realize I already miss my kids . . . a little bit.

2:00 p.m.
I spend my afternoon writing at Starbucks, drinking a free latte for my birthday.

6:00 p.m.
Dan takes me out for fondue. I want to wear a pretty, summery outfit so badly, but it is a windy and rainy fifty-degree day. I even had to turn on the heater in the house. I wear a summer outfit anyway and take a sweater and an umbrella with me.

"You're refusing to notice the cold, aren't you?" Dan asks as we drive to the restaurant.

 I turn the car thermostat up to seventy-five and put my feet, bare and in sandals, under the vent.

"It's my birthday! I can wear spaghetti straps if I want."

I have to wear my cardigan throughout our entire dinner.

8:00 p.m.
Our neighbor is in the rain, welding the base of our mailbox when we get home. Dan goes outside to help. He comes back in a while later, drenched.

"No one got electrocuted, right?" I ask.

That would have been a tragic end to my birthday.


 

Additional thoughts on turning thirty-five:

• In May, I realized I was feeling pretty sore after my King and I performances, a soreness I hadn't really encountered in my ten-plus years of doing theater. "I'm getting too old for this," I told the conductor, an almost-retired university professor. "You and me both," he said with a chuckle. 
• Of course, I was told by a local journalist that I looked too young to play Anna in The King and I. I assured her I wasn't, but I didn't tell her my actual age. 
• Dan and I have discovered that we can't remember our ages. We know we're in our thirties, but sometimes we forget which thirty. My father says, "It's easy for me to remember your age. I just add 30 to the age I will be in September." The trouble is I can't remember my father's age either. 
• Dan and I were downtown the other night. We lost our parking garage ticket and had to pay the daily rate, $12. Later that night, Dan lost his reading glasses. We were tired by 9 p.m.

For the latest blog updates, visit and "like" Rebecca Turner-Duggan

Check out more of my work in: