milestones and dates on the calendar

For 4 years, 11 months, 2 weeks and 4 days I have marked dates in my planner that meant something. Many times, these marked dates weren't in ink, or marker or even pencil. Most of the time the dates where in my head...but important nonetheless.

The dates aren't the ones you might imagine. Mother's Day doesn't phase me. Holidays like Easter, Christmas, Anya's Birthday don't really bother me either. I've never purchased a gift for Anya for Christmas, and left it unwrapped under the tree (which would have been stupid, considering she would have been 2 when we started this practice, and now is 7...what in the world would I have done with all those gifts?).

The dates that bother me are my birthday, the Children's Christmas presentation at church, the baptism celebration at church and Scoop.

And now I know you are asking "what in the heck is Scoop". Scoop is the start of each new fashion season. In a nutshell, I travel to some destination with 2,000 other fashion people for what we call Fashion Week. We learn about new trends, see runway fashion shows, have random training seminars, go to big dinners. bla bla bla. Well, what happens at Scoop (aside from the self imposed stress of what to wear), is that you go into a meeting with a bunch of people you don't know. You start talking to the people around you and always ask "where are you from" "How long have you been working in this line of work" and of course "do you have kids". That always launches into my canned adoption speech.

Many of these ladies I've met I see twice a year, and have been seeing them for YEARS. Now when I see them, they want to know if I brought Anya with me.

I remember 5 years ago going to the baptism celebration. Marty and I sat at the edge of the lake, watching the dedication of babies. We saw kids who had made a decision to give their lives to Christ be baptised. Knowing what it will take to teach Anya about the Love of Christ, and considering that one day - she may be walking into the water is pretty overwhelming.

The Christmas children's program church always bother me because as the children sing on stage, I can almost find myself searching for Anya among all the little faces. I know she isn't there...but for some strange reason I still look.

And my birthday...wow, sounds kind of selfish doesn't it?

I think the birthday thing bothers me for a few reasons. Some of my favorite memories as a child was planning my Mom's birthday. It was a big deal to me. I always wanted to get the perfect gift (which was usually some ugly nightgown or horrible handbag). Wrapping it was always a big deal too...it had to be perfect. On my Mom's 50th, I organized a surprise party for her, to this day she claims that she is finding little confetti pieces in the shape of "50's"...and let's just say that was more than a few years ago (haha!). I think we all want to recreate things for our kids that are the good memories of our childhood.

I think that annual planning exercise taught me how important it is to make a big deal for other people...to do something for someone else, just because.

That feeling of giving joy to someone else led to me hosting my own birthday parties. Every year marks another year that I am a woman without children. At my age, most women have a family, they have children...very few don't. So rather than to pity another year gone by, I've had my friends over to my house for a midsummer cookout. The cookout was a clever way to have a birthday celebration without anyone feeling like they had to bring a gift.

This year - tomorrow actually - I turn 40. One of my blog friends (Kate) and I have had conversations about how it is important to us to have our girls before we turn 40. We don't know why, but it is important. This birthday, I won't have my baby girl. I don't know where she is (camp I assume) and it sucks.

I'm not posting this as some kind of plea for you all to leave poor Kathy comments - please don't do that.

I know many of you are my every day friends, and are sick of hearing me talk about turning 40. Well - now you know why I've been consumed by that number. I don't care much about being older (I have a great relationship with a very good dermatologist...if it bothers me enough, I can fix it), I care what being older represents.