Birthday Celebration

My birthday was on the first Sunday of June. A lot of my friends were out of town or busy with family, which I completely understood. I had a very nice birthday hanging out with my friend Laura. It was very low key, but I have no regrets, no unfulfilled wish for it to have been another way. Would I have liked to have had all my friends around me? Sure. But I had a lovely time the way it was.
My book club meets on the last monday of the month. Several of my closest girlfriends are in the book club with me. Audrey was hosting this month, and she sent out an email saying that she was going to be doing dessert and needed to know who was going to be there so she had an accurate count for ordering dessert. I sent an email saying that I would be there but not to include me in the dessert count.
I showed up to book club with every resolve not to have dessert. We read this really awful book that took place in France, and we’ve all tended to do food that was loosely in the theme of what we were reding, so I figured Audrey was going to do some sort of individual French desserts. Instead she did this really need Chinese tea service.
While she was setting that up, Bonnie and Dee asked me to get out wahat was in the box next go me. Inside the box was a paper crown with grass and flowers. Perplexed, I held it out to Bonnie, thinking it was for Audrey. Dee told me to turn it around. I did, and immediately smiled. It said “Happy Birthday” on it. They had emailed each other off the book club list and planned a surprise party for me. Apparently there was also a bit of a freak out on Audrey’s part when she found out that I don’t really eat sugary foods anymore, because she planned to get an ice cream cake. She still got the ice cream cake, but Bonnie made really neat jello jiggler flowers as a lower sugar alternative for me.
I was blown away by their thoughtfulness. I have great friends. I didn’t make a big deal about them missing my birthday because I understand having obligations. But it means an awful lot to me that they felt bad enough about missing it to do something like that for me. I didn’t have birthday cake or any sort of dessert on my birthday, so I did have a small piece of ice cream cake, but I feel good about the decision because it was a responsibly small piece, not a piece the size of which I would have eaten previously.

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