Three More Sleeps Till Birthday

So the dress is coming along alright. I ended up finished some edges by hand to make the construction nicer and more fray-resistant, so I've been hand-sewing up a storm. I really need a thimble. I always thought of them as superfluous, but after ramming a needle butt (which is almost as sharp as the needle itself) repeatedly against my finger, I'm thinking I should have one.

Oh, and my birthday is in two days. WOOOOOOOOOHOOOOO.

I was talking with Jefe today about birthdays on the phone. It's funny how people treat them. My mother always points out that in Argentina when you go to the doctor's office, you have to state three things in front of the entire lobby: your name, your maiden name (medical files are listed by maiden name since that's your genetic history), and your age. When she first found this out, she was shocked and slightly dismayed. Later, she began to realize that telling an entire room full of strangers your age could be liberating, especially coming from a North American background.

Maybe it's because Latin American countries haven't had high life expectancies as long as the North American countries. Maybe it's the Catholic roots, always more comfortable with tricky subjects like impending death. For whatever reason, they embrace life and though they've been influenced by the youth-obsessed American culture, they still value age and seem less afraid of it.

Contrast that with most of my friends who are FREAKED out by birthdays, and THEY'RE IN THEIR TWENTIES. I mean, if you can't be happy about them now, what will you do when you turn 30? 56? 68? I'm not looking forward to my body rebelling against me, or my mind giving out on important details, but let's get real. I will be 24 years of age on Sunday, and those unpleasant thoughts are far in the future (unless I become disabled in some way, but that's not really age-related so don't bring it up in comments and think you're SO clever for having refuted me with your spectucular, though ultimately fruitless counter-example. This is that vaunted youth everyone's after. Personally, I think it's somewhat overrated, and I look forward to further life experience and the greater self-determination that seems to come with age. Ah, but getting to those goodies means living to them, and I'm back where I started, sitting at my desk, totally geeked that I'm another year older and (I hope) wiser.

This is probably all a direct result of having spent most of time around adults. Surprisingly all their talk of "aging = enemy" didn't stick, though. Hurray for selective hearing, and for my sake, HURRAY FOR BIRTHDAYS.

All my twenty-something friends, you may commence (or continue) to hate me for my perky outlook on this topic.