Remember The Footsteps, Remember The Words Said & All Your Little Brother's Favorite Songs, I Just Realized Everything I Have Is Someday Gonna Be Gone

--"Never Grow Up", Taylor Swift

You get up like you do every year on your birthday, the sleep still in your eyes, at 2:13 a.m. The world at large might not know it, but you know it. Today is the first day of you trying out what it's like to be thirty-one. You're raring to go. You shake yourself loose, give a quick check on the cats, peck your husband on the cheek, and head downstairs.

Ever since you turned seven the ritual has always been to get up at 2:13 a.m., a minute before you were born, and just take a few minutes to welcome the new year in. It's something you've always done alone. It's a bit of a tradition, you reckon. To you there's something about welcoming a new year of life alone, like watching the sunrise alone. It gives you the sense that it's yours and yours alone. It doesn't matter who else might be up at this hour. When you prowl down the upstairs hallway and down the stairs it's only you awake in the house. The perception is that little 'ole you is the only one who knows what today feels like you. The perception is you're the first one let in on the surprise, on the secret. You head down to the kitchen where you go to sit at the breakfast table. You want a better view of the world outside on your day. You want to know what the day has in store for you. But, natch, it's two in the morning so the world doesn't let you know very much. You do see some activity--the whir of a neighbor's morning sprinklers, the lights from a good distance down the street of some folks who probably merely forgot to turn them off, the smell of the dew forming on the lawn--but most of the world is asleep, as they should be.

When you were still at your parents you used to perform this routing sitting on your balcony, legs interlaced through the railing. You used to stare out at the horizon, hoping to catch some glimpse of the first morning light. Even then you never saw very much. However, it still felt new and exciting. You knew what day it was and because of that every whisper and spark seemed especially meant for you to notice. Because of that the whole day took on added significance, starting with your first few minutes in it.

You sit at the breakfast table and try to think of all that you have to be thankful for. You're thankful for your husband and your house, your parents, and Patrick. You're thankful for Katie, for Fanny, for Fawn, for Toby, and Torry, wherever she might be. You're thankful for your business, and your car, and Mary and Louie, who didn't even have the decency to follow you downstairs. You're thankful for your morning jogs, your dance lessons, your times with your daddy at all those Braves games, your nights spent scaring your friends with your frightening ghost stories, and all those downright hilarious times you tried your hand karaoke. You're thankful for all those times you ran away and still managed to make it back safe. You're thankful for all those days you woke up in tears and went to sleep laughing the night away. You're thankful for all those times you drank too much, talked too loud, and just plain 'ole made a fool of yourself. You're thankful for all those times you plowed the field frontwards and back, you didn't turn tail, and saw the job done with your own eyes. And you're thankful that you are who you are today. When you think of all the things that could have gone wrong or different, you're amazed everything worked out so flawlessly as it did.

But mostly you're thankful for your faith and belief in God, through whom all things are possible.

You don't know how long you'll sit staring out at the window. You've always just played it by ear when it comes to these middle of the night sojourns, Some years you go straight from these moments of reflection into going for an hour jog. Some years you're up only for ten minutes and then you head back to bed. Today feels sort of in-between. You really don't feel like jogging today, seeing as you've already gone four days straight. Neither do you feel comfortable in returning to the loving arms of your husband. You tell yourself you'll wait a few more moments, when the feeling of anticipation has passed.

You start humming to yourself an old BeeGees tune, "Massachusetts," for no apparent reason other than it was the first song that popped into your head this morning. "And the lights all went down in Massachusetts/The day I left her standing on her own," you hum to yourself. It's somehow appropriate--lights being out and all, and all this talk of being left standing on your own. That's what this ritual is, a time for you to be alone with the idea of your being another year older, before everyone else chimes in. You know what the rest of the day means--your husband cooking you a birthday breakfast like he always does; a nice, long chat with Eeyore about how it feels to be another year older; a visit to your folks in the afternoon; and then usually a dinner out with Greg and some other friends where you usually splurge on the entrees and especially the drinks. But these mornings? These mornings are for you and you alone. You're the only one who ever knows what really goes on during them and you're the only one who knows what the thoughts are that these reflective moments awaken in you. The rest of your birthday is the show, the smiling face for all you know to let them know how special they're making you feel. But the time after 2:13 a.m. till you properly get up with the rest of the world is your turn to remind yourself of how special you truly are.


I could still be little

In the end, you never make it back to bed. Your husband finds you asleep with your head laying tilted on the breakfast table. He gathers you up like a cord of firewood, carries you back upstairs to your bed in your bedroom with orange walls, and tucks you back in. There, the two of you fall asleep once more, till it's his turn to get up without you all so he can make you breakfast in bed. And when he asks you, while you're eating his scrumptuous french toast, fresh-squeezed orange juice, and scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese, what you did last night on your "time-out" you answer him like you do every year.

"I honestly can't remember, honey," even though you remember every second of it. After all, you're thirty-one these days, not three-hundred-and-one.

Breanne