birthday eve

photo from http://abeautifulmessinside.com

Tomorrow I am 44.  Forty-Four.
It has a nice, even, symmetrical quality about it, even if it is a number that feels a bit too big and a bit too foreign. In my mind, I think about 38 is right.
Even more so, since I am now 21 weeks pregnant with a baby girl child.
Being 44 and half-way there to birth is far more knackering that it was at 41.
I am tired and not so very patient.  Makes me want to take a bit of stock on just what and where I am today on my birthday eve.

I am:

• pregnant
• almost 44
• OK, we covered that
• tired
• ditto
• often blank of mind when I have 10 minutes of quiet
• in love with my bed
• illogically laundry obsessed
• disinterested in most current affairs
• nervous if I don't have both a book to read and a book to listen to
• eating much cheese
• scared to drive our newly acquired car (I haven't driven in the UK since the DAY of my test. In 2006. Hello)
• worried about having 2 children drain my waning energies
• worried that child 1 will be sad not to have his mum all to himself 
• worried that I have no recall on how to care for actual baby
• realising this list is not as whimsical and light as I imagined it
• trying now to think of really positive things
• blank of mind

OK. Let me try something else ... here's what I want for my 44th year

• endurance
• patience
• flexibility
• light-heartedness
• giggles
• family hugs
• embracing change
• ever expanding love supply for all my important people including myself
• financial stability
• ability to find the silly
• be the best mother, partner, daughter and friend I can be
• appreciate the many magical tiny moments I have each day
• one eye on the horizon so I can picture where we are going and start to get excited about being there
• gratitude for the ways which I know, I already have all of those things

so close

and yet...

So

Far

I had high hopes that Mark was turning in his dissertation on Friday -- leaving us with 3 full days of skipping in the street, getting drunk mid-day and reclaiming the surfaces of the conservatory, now piled high with books and papers and student detritus.

But. No.

The cruel MBA people are allowing him to turn it in on Monday. Squashing my visions with a big stinky foot.

I responded as only I can. Crabbily, brattily annoyed.

I feel bad about this, but I was soooooo close to having my partner back. Space in his head for me. Play dates and also help mate in the house. I feel I have been by my standards, patient for so long. I was ready. Am ready for the Next Thing.

So instead I went to the movies. (Atonement- v good) and I went to the dry cleaners. And did laundry. And took a long soaky bubble bath with the October Vanity Fair. And made chicken corn chowder. And I felt very sorry for myself for 2 days. Making this All About Me. And making me about 8 years old.

But today is Sunday and while I firmly believe Mark has made this about 700 times harder, longer and more time consuming than I ever would, it is his way. And he will be proud to turn it in at the very last tick of the clock tonight. And even though I am so very done with Mark's MBA and his year of learning, I know I am getting a more rounded and more fulfilled partner out of it.

So the vision has changed to a long celebratory lunch on my No Work Monday. WIne. Good Food. Talking. Just the 2 of Us. With nothing hanging over our heads. Except him getting a job. But that complaint is for another day.