Birthdays and Memories

Happy Birthday to me! How old am I again? I'm trying not to remember if only to keep myself mentally in a state as young as possible. Ok, so when I look at my pictures of myself now I see signs of age: the wrinkles that are no longer created by smiling, the skin starting to lose elasticity around my neck, the growing amount of silver gray in my hair. But as they say, it's not the number you focus on but what fills your life. These days, I'm squarely focused on my role as Johnnie's dad most especially this week. And that is enough to keep anyone tired, but also to keep someone young. For there is nothing better than to watch a child everyday that reminds you that anything is possible, that the world is full of wonder, and that whatever scares you is only scary in your mind. And so with that, I wish myself a Happy Birthday today. I can't really do anything all that special, not even if I had taken the day off.  At least nothing that I don't already do, even with Johnnie. And today I saw myself actually get STRESSED about navigating him through 3 Zoom classes. And I felt like Lisa being frustrated with all this, especially when i entered him the wrong class. Then again I thought to myself would this be any different if it were in-person? I'd still be confused. Maybe less frustrated only because I realize the frustration is coming from a place of the IT guy who's supposed to not have any problems with technology. What a naive thought LOL. Anyway I found myself trying to balance Johnnie's first 2 classes with my own IT Team Meeting, and found myself going back and forth between Johnnie and my own screen for a bit. I reminded myself this is actually my FIRST experience of Johnnie's REAL CLASS day as last week was just abbreviated practice. And that meant he had to have another class at 12:10 right in the middle of the time he and I usually grab lunch. And so that's a routine that's already blown and I had to figure out a way to get him food before his class. Today, it was a nutella sandwich. It was all I had. I have to do better tomorrow.

As for me, I got myself a loaded personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. Hey, it's my birthday right? I wanted to get something out of the ordinary. I had to wait until almost 1 PM to get it since that was when Johnnie's class finished <look at the pic of him working on putting blocks together> but I also swung by Coffee Bean to get myself a hazelnut frozen drink. Might as well go all out LOL. Memories of that Coffee Bean on the corner of Grand and 9th came up and how many of these drinks I used to get. Or the Coffee Bean on Olympic right by Lisa's office on a Saturday I used to work there. Funny the associations you remember. And that's when I reminded myself that all you have are a tapestry of moments and it is a good thing to collect as many of those as you can that make you feel good. Even as simple as a hazelnut frozen drink from Coffee Bean. I got tangible reminders today too of course, in the form of people remembering and greeting me via texts and social media posts. I appreciate them all of course. It's good to be remembered, even if it's Facebook that reminds you. Surface friends I gloss over I admit. But there were a few pings that I really appreciated. The usual ones in my inner circle, the Dexters, the Jorges you almost take for granted because they have already proven they will always be there.  But I appreciated my boss sending me a text first thing. Or Gina from Santa Rosa from my General Dynamics days sending a note. People like her seem to come from an entire lifetime ago. But the moments they bring back are precious. Like working in that new building on Haven in Rancho Cucamonga. It's like remembering that hey that's ME too even if it was so long ago. Scott texted me too, representing the Hacienda Golf Club days, as did Lynda the staunch Republican and who I used to call "mom". But I would find out later on that it was my real mom that didn't reach out but almost used an emissary to do so. That being my Tita Alice from Australia who reached out via Facebook Messenger not just to wish my Happy Birthday face-to-face, but to also remind me that my mom is unhappy with me for not contacting her as often as I probably should. Maybe I got that stigma of being taken for granted from her, but I really should get over that and if anything, work harder on clearing it and cleaning it up.  I don't want to feel that way anymore. Notably but not unexpectedly, my ex-wife didn't reach out. But then again she never did when we were married. And a memory of that day she came home from work early on my birthday came up. She did so not to celebrate my birthday but to bring by a patient to see the house, who just happened to be friends with me as well. That I need to clear and clean up too. My son was with me all day, wished me Happy Birthday and it meant everything to me that I spent the day with Johnnie, even if I was working and he was actually in class for half the day. In the end it actually was simply a regular Tuesday but on this Tuesday it was my tita Alice that reminded me that I'm still the happy, willful child she knew with lots of personality. Hey isn't that Johnnie too? Like father, like son.