Milestones

My baby sister turned 40 yesterday. 40. pfff.

My sisters' birthdays have always had a more profound effect on me than my own. I've never gotten excited or bothered about any of the typical milestones. I didn't get a car on my 16th birthday, didn't even get a key. I didn't go out for drinks on my 21st birthday. In fact, my mother was in one of her silent angry modes and I got a box with an outfit in it shoved in my face without ceremony. My boyfriend was also angry at me and went to a party without me. If not for my little sister, who hadn't seen her 10th birthday yet, and to whom birthdays were still very important, I would have ignored that milestone completely. But that cute little face wanting more than anything else to sing "Happy Birthday" to me and see me blow out a candle remains etched in my mind as the one wonderful thing from that day.

25, a quarter of a century, was spent somewhere, doing something. Who knows. 30 was spent walking the floors all hours of the day/night with a little 2 week old screaming wiggly thing.

40 was a wonderful celebration with family in a beautiful setting near the beach in Santa Cruz, and 50 was spent in another celebration with sisters and niece getting my very first massage, facial and some other treatment with a fancy name. A wrap of some sort, I think. So it's not that they haven't been celebrated or special. It's just that other people get there before me, so it's really no big deal when I get there.

Older sister milestone birthdays are tough because it makes me realize and ponder the passage of time and it always amazes me that she's "so OLD" and looks so GOOD! And wherever she is, I know I'm headed there next! In reality, she hasn't even seen the top of the hill, let alone gone over to the other side. Numbers matter not.

Then there's baby sis. Every milestone is the end of something, and the realization that whatever milestone she hit, I hit it a VERY LONG TIME AGO! Maybe it's all part of the middle child thing, who knows - but I do know that my baby sister is in her 40s now and that's pretty weird. But it's been 40 well-lived years and I'm awfully happy the tumor my mother thought she had turned out to have red hair, dimples and a killer smile.

Happy birthday, "little girl" - Love you!!