Happy Quarantine Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my birthday. Some years we celebrate with a family gathering. Other years we have gone out to dinner either as a family or just my husband and I have gone out on our own, sometimes to a fancy restaurant.  There have been years when we have celebrated by going to the theater.  For my last big birthday my husband threw me a bash on the roof of our synagogue. 

Just as I have been avoiding counter the Omer this year, because counting the days between Passover and Shavuot would just reinforce exactly how many days and weeks we have been on lock-down I have also been avoiding thinking about my birthday. It just seemed like it wasn't going to be a very pleasant day so I may as well not thing about it.

One of my sisters began asking me what I wanted for a gift. My initial reply was that I had no idea because I wasn't feeling particularly celebratory this year. Last week though my husband came up with a brilliant suggestion. He suggested that I set up a series of Zoom parties through the day.

As I looked through my list of contacts I decided to set up three different celebrations. One was with friends from my synagogue. Our weekly chats (during) and after services has served as my informal support group for every issue I have had in my life. I miss those easy weekly encounters. 

A couple of summers ago I had done a girl's weekend with one group of my college friends. One of their dear friends died very recently and it seemed like the right time to hang out together .

The  Zoom call I was most excited about was with four  women who I had met mostly in seventh and eighth grade. The Orthodox day school I attended, was a terrible fit for me, in ways too many to count. I was always in search of people who could possibly be my friend. During the years when young girls yearn for and seek a best friend I was satisfied to have friends at all. 

I made friends with each of these women when we were girls and each one found our school to be not the right place for her and left. I continued in the school that was a bad fit and envied my friends for being able to leave.

Just knowing that I would be speaking to this group of women made me look forward to my birthday.

I so loved our time together yesterday. Some of us hadn't seen one another since the early 1970's. We had met when we were young and despite the years (decades) when we didn't speak we still had so much connecting one another.

We realized that we don't have to wait quite so long for our next chat.