It’s my husband’s birthday today. His real birthday. He was eight when I married him. He turned twelve the same year our daughter turned twelve. He was still twelve when my son turned twelve. I was pretty tired of twelve by the time he turned thirteen.

I’ve always loved birthdays—even as I advance in years. As Bob Dylan says, he who isn’t busy being born is busy dying. I’m working on being busy being born. I was published later in life than some, but not as late as others. I needed that time. What can I say? I’ve always been a late bloomer. The nice thing about that is that late bloomers seem to age well, so I’m doing all right in that category--mentally anyway, lol.

But, back to the hubbie—birthdays aside, I married an older man. I never dreamed that my soul mate would be almost a decade older than me, but he is. Our story is a bit like a romance novel—he’d come back to college after working for years. We were both in geology graduate school. There were lots of reasons why we shouldn’t have gotten together. Probably the biggest was that he thought he was going to remain happily single for the rest of his life. Also, we’d been raised in totally different environments (east vs. west, private school vs. good old public education; I order things from a menu and he otters them) but the attraction was strong and we got married. We’re still very much together and occasionally finish one another’s sentences. I can’t see walking through life with anyone else, even though occasionally he needs a good tuning up. What man doesn’t?

The glory of being married to someone older, is that the milestone birthdays are painless. Thirty? Big deal (Although he was a little over thirty when we married, I could tell from his attitude that it didn’t sting.) Forty? No sweat. Fifty? Bring it on. I’d like to have my thirty-year-old body back, but….I wouldn’t want my thirty-year-old brain because my current brain is much better attuned to life and more relaxed, so I’m going to tackle each birthday with the knowledge that I really am getting better—except for maybe my thighs.

Have a Happy Leap Year Day.