Happy Half-Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was my half birthday. I am pretty certain that most adults don't think about their half birthdays, or even realize on a particular day that it is their half birthday. But of course, I am not most adults! Working with a class of 5 year olds year after year does tend to make me more aware of these things. Although to be honest when I arrived at work yesterday I had not yet realized it was my own half birthday until I was checking our calendar and saw that it was Nicholas' half birthday, and since I remembered that Nicholas and I both share the same summer birthday, I realized with a jolt that that meant we share the same half birthday as well. As I prepared the sticker and card for Nicholas I wondered if the parents would have their children make cards for me the way they had for my co-teacher on her birthday last month. (At our school if you have a birthday in the summer we celebrate your half birthday instead). Sure enough the kids hopped out of their cars with a variety of homemade cards. I was touched to receive the drawings of trucks ("I know bulldozers are your favorite" one little boy told me confidently though I have no recollection of ever mentioning a favorite truck-) cut out shapes, hearts, paintings, even a penguin bottle cap card, and an origami card containing a small chocolate bar! But for the first time since I turned 30, I felt a stirring of consternation about the passage of another year. Or half year, whatever. I know 48 1/2 is not a milestone birthdate, and yet I cannot describe the feeling as other than panic and increduality at the realization that in half a year I will be 49, which in and of itself is not so bad, but it means that in a mere 11 and a half years I will be . . . . .I don't even think I can write it and have it relate to myself . . . . 60!!!
Skip right over 50, that doesn't worry me a bit. I have friends and a sister who make 50 look totally appealing. They are wise and experienced, but not old. But 60, there is no denying, 60 means you are getting old. Now I can totally see myself still teaching maybe even in my current job in 12 years, but I cannot see that it means I will be doing it when I am 60! I started at this school 11 years ago when I was in my 30's! And I swear I haven't aged a bit. Have I??? It feels like I am somehow catching up to my mother's age! I know I should dwell on the positive aspects like, well once I know what they are I will dwell on them. In the meantime I better savor every day for the second half of this year, and maybe no one, least of all me myself will even notice that in half a year I will be turning, gulp, 49!
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