pity, party of one.

Hey.

It’s my birthday.

I’m 29, boring, and I loathe sermon writing.

The day started out well.  I woke up on my grandparents’ couch.  I was home in Edgerton for an ever-so-very-brief two nights because of a memorial service I led on Friday in Illinois for a Dancing Banana’s father-in-law.  I was honored to have been asked to lead the service and grateful to have a way in which to contribute and help in such a difficult time.  And the funeral director?  Crazy awesome.  [And by crazy awesome I mean crazy.]

Anyways, I woke up on my grandparents’ couch.  We went out for breakfast, meeting my mom and her gentleman friend.  It was fun and delicious.  Next we went to see the new house of my mother’s.  I shopped local with Grandma and popped by to say happy birthday to my birthday buddy cousin, Connor [who is 20 and had returned from study abroad in Ghana just the night before].  Then I packed up and headed out.  From that point on, my birthday got really lame really fast.

I stopped at Starbucks in Wisconsin Dells to claim my free birthday drink and then I stopped in LaCrosse to claim my Mabel who had been boarded there for the past two nights.  We drove home and I muddled my way through a patchwork, likely-disaster sermon for tomorrow.  [I’d had a funeral at ROG on Wednesday; between that and the memorial service on Friday, no Sunday prep was to be found during the work week.]  When I have to write my Sunday sermons on Saturday night [my birthday, nonetheless], I become a monster.  I become a monster who cries and will say she hates her job.  A bitter monster.  deep breath.

Maybe when you turn 29, birthdays just get boring and bitter by default.  

No?  It’s just me?

Of course.

I used to say that birthdays were my excuse to make my friends do something I wanted to do.  Like have friends over to my house.  Or go on an adventure.  Or play crazy board games.  Or eat cake.  Now maybe birthdays will be my excuse to drink wine at home alone [which really makes it no different than any other night].

Party on, Wayne.