With this ring...

At 3:03 a.m. 35 years ago today, I came quietly (and quickly according to my mother) into this world. At 7 pounds and 10½ ounces, I was considered "large" by comparison to my nursery mates.

My earliest memory is of looking up into the sky and saying "jet." We lived near an Air Force base and the frequency of the planes flying overhead piqued my curiosity. I was fascinated by them.

Mom worked the early morning shift and so I had to get up early to be off to daycare. One morning I found that my favored white go-go boots were too small. I threw a fit. I mean a fit. I still remember being bitterly disappointed that I could no longer prance around to Terry Jack's "Seasons in the Sun" (see, even as a child I showed a preference for the melancholy) wearing them. That year was the one that my mother gently shook me awake to wish me happy birthday before she left for work. I remember asking her how old I was now. "Four, honey." I had a chocolate cake with four pink plastic ballerinas in permanently posed pirouettes.

In 1976, I was finally introduced to the stepfather's parents. My existence having been sprung suddenly on them the Christmas before, they surprised me by driving up for my birthday. A strawberry cake with pink frosting, and more gifts than I had ever seen had been packed neatly in a cardboard box and driven all that way, just for me. They had even prepared dinner and then reheated it. After tucking me into bed, they made the trek home. Through the radio on the drives to and from school, Barry sang about writing songs that made girls cry; Elton and Kiki pleaded for someone not to break their heart; Paul admonished the listener to let someone in; and somewhere, the boys were back in town. My favorite new band was Wings.

1983 I was 13. I hosted my first co-ed party complete with a cake in the shape of a skate made by my aunt who was living with us at the time. We ate the cake on the screened-in porch dripping with streamers and dotted with balloons. I quickly opened the gifts, briefly thanked everyone for kindly having their mothers pick something out for me, and we piled into Aunt's VW wagon to head to the skating rink. We rolled round and round and round to Men at Work, Bonnie Tyler, The Police, Stevie Miller, Thomas Dolby, Prince, Jacko, The Pretenders, Toto, Asia. Chicago always crooned the annoying "slowskate."

Eighteen years old, a senior and finally on my way out the door to my "own" life, I held another chaperoned co-ed party to usher me into adulthood. It was clean, no alcohol, but a few of the guys did show up a little sauced. We feed them lots of food, laughed at their antics, and then made sure a sober driver got them home. The girls and I took the party back to my house for an overnighter, complete with movies (Ladyhawke and Some Kind of Wonderful), games I invented, food, and too much talking. I was told that at one point, deep in the night and deep in sleep, I sat up and asked one of the girls if she ever shut up. Nice girl that I was, I apologized. She forgave. While skating rinks were no longer the big thing, the music we listened to still moved us: U2, Inxs, The Outfield, Crowded House, Billy Idol, The Cutting Crew, Robert Palmer, Pet Shop Boys, Peter Gabriel John Cougar Mellencamp, Steve Winwood, The Bangles, George Michael, Guns-n-Roses, Duran Duran.

I have spent the last 16 birthdays with R and he makes every effort to make me feel celebrated, loved, and appreciated specifically on this day. He and the children prepare every meal I request, clean-up, give gifts, and are basically at my complete disposal. It is a day of dreams for most women. Yet, each year, although I know that my husband will do his best to make my day terrific, I get a little down. Turning 30 was hard. So that year, it was even worse. After a few months, I realized that anticipating it had been far worse than actually living it. (Well, that and I delivered my last child in the late spring. You decide which relieved me the most). It's not getting older that gets me down. Every year I never know if I am going to hear anything, any acknowledgment, from the one, the only one still around, that witnessed my birth, my entrance into this world. Some years she gives extravagant gifts, others she completely forgets. Sometimes I answer the phone days later to an apologetic voice giving detailed excuses. I used to feel the need to alleviate her guilt, but one year, I decided to just let her talk until she quit and then said, "Thank you for calling me now. It really hurt my feelings that you can't seem to get the day of my birth straight." She apologized again and attempted to make-up for it by sending me a terrifically expensive gift from some home retail show. The next year she called me two days early to send her many happy returns of the day. When I told her that this wasn't the day, she confessed to not quite remembering the exact day and confusing it with some other major event that happens in February. I reminded her that according to the first eighteen years of my life, it was, indeed, the twentieth.

Each year I swear off allowing it to affect me, but this time, I gave in. I let myself realize that I while my mother loves me to the extent that she knows how, she will never get it exactly right. It made me so depressed to face this. But tonight as I looked around the table, saw the loving faces warmly illuminated by candles, heard the deep voice swirled with the higher pitch, received the gentle little cheeks pressed against my own, felt the scruff of the goatee against my lips and chin, I realized these people are getting it just perfectly.

This year I received a gorgeous ring in the mail. It is pretty, like my mother. Pretty to look at, to have in ones possession, to adorn oneself with, but not warm and affectionate. I know that it will fetch compliments. I know I will say, "Oh, my mother gave this to me." I know the person will walk away and think "how special that girl must be to her mother." I know that this thought will bring her pleasure. I know that I have to just let it be a pretty ring on the hand that looks just like her own, and walk off to the true reflection of being loved and special and valued, waiting for me at home.

Oh, and music still transports me, but I now find the compositions' geneses from within.