My birthday was over the weekend and I did a few fun things to celebrate. While turning 37 isn’t particularly glamorous, it was nice to reflect back on the year, and think about how far I’ve come in my life lately. I feel very lucky where I am half the time, and the other half the time I feel like I must be crazy to think that because I feel so behind my peers (or where society thinks I should be)…but I think that when I think THAT I’m doing that thing where you compare your inside to other people’s outsides. Not literally. Or depending on your definition of literally…literally!

(Oh, and this post is not signaling the end of my Italy trip journaling. It’s just a different post.)

I’m having a text conversation with my sister Leslie about whether when women tell you how much they have grown and matured and care about different things now that they have a baby, does that mean they are telling you that they are better than you or simply that their life is better than it was before? I’m so used to being judged for not having kids that sometimes I’m sure I’m overly sensitive. Then again, other times I’m not being overly sensitive and indeed people are telling me that my life is meaningless without a baby. It occurred to me the other day though, that I definitely care less about what other people think than I used to.

ANYWAY. I really opened this program here to write about my birthday.

Louie wanted to take me out for a nice dinner for my birthday and we settled on Peacemaker Lobster and Crab. We hadn’t been before and had wanted to try it for some time so my birthday was perfect. As we were being seated I saw what the table next to us was eating and grew very interested…so I ordered the lobster boil, the most expensive thing on the menu, I believe. Louie ordered the crab boil to be different, and we also got hush puppies because I just couldn’t resist.

We each enjoyed a nice cocktail too, and mine was called The Louie (again, I couldn’t resist) and was great. Our waiter brought our bibs out and we immediately put them on. This was our mistake. We thought that meant our food was arriving without moments and instead we ended up wearing our bibs another ten minutes. I decided not to be concerned about whether or not the other customers were laughing at us 😉

But finally the food arrived. And how!

It was great! Louie thought the crab was a lot of effort for a little meat, but it was delicious. Both meals came with sausages, potatoes, brussels sprouts and a biscuit, and mine also had a hard boiled egg. It was just an amazing meal and I enjoyed every bite. The hush puppies were perhaps the best I’d ever had, so even though we hardly needed them with the amount of food, they were a great accompaniment. Eating lobster and crab is very messy and we both managed to cut our fingers on the crab (there was some trading!) but it was just a phenomenal meal. I did not save room for dessert, and in fact realized I haven’t had any birthday desserts! Oh well.

Other fun weekend activities included hanging out with April and getting pizza at Pi. On our way back to car after dinner a guy stopped Louie and asked if he could have his leftovers and Louie gave them to him. I suppose he needed them more, but I thought that was quite the racket—I’d love everybody’s Pi leftovers!

The rest of the weekend was mostly work and housework. This week and next are pretty busy for me, which I suppose is normal, but after having had a few lighter weeks it’s harder to get back into that. This morning I went for a run around 10 am (I actually had students before that which is why I waited, I’m not one of those people who can get up at 6 am since I work nights and I also value my sleep!) and it was hot hot hot! I know it’ll get hotter, and I’ll be honest, it wasn’t that bad in the shade, but summer is definitely here. Louie made a joke the other day about “summer is coming” and something about the “sweaty walkers.” (GoT fans will probably chuckle faintly.)

So, back to the original paragraph: do you feel like your life is on the track society thinks it should be? Are you where you thought you would be by now? Are you judging me for not having a baby?