My 43rd Birthday Present
It's not what you think.
Before I jump in, I want to address the elephant in the room that is on most people’s minds: the election on Nov. 5. I’ve received a lot of requests to write about it - I will in time. I’m not quite at that place yet and don’t want to give a hot take. This is not about guarding my words, but more about unraveling them in my head before presenting a solid cohesive thought. I promise I will give that to you soon. Until then, I’m including a list below of the friends and colleagues I adore who shared their opinions. Please read, subscribe, and support them - they’re doing incredible work.
I turned the page on 43 this Wednesday. As a Friday the 13th baby, it always feels weird to have a birthday in the middle of the week. Not quite the weekend with unfettered time to celebrate, not quite a day where I can take “off” and not get things done.
If I’m honest, each year I forget it’s my birthday until the weekend before. It sneaks up on me like the coyotes hunting bunnies that we see in our neighborhood at times.
Don’t get me wrong - I love birthdays. Celebrating my kids and husband is an all-out affair with at least two parties and cakes and goodies. With mine, my celebrations now seem to take a more low-key approach. I’m grateful for friends who remember, and yet I never seem to plan any type of gathering for myself. I used to feel bad about this, but I’ve somewhat acquiesced to loving the intimacy of this type of birthday celebration.
Which is why I decided to do one vital act of self-care on election day and another on my birthday. I considered both as a present to myself.
On election day, I shut off my phone and headed to a spa north of Seattle. It’s a ritual for me - a place I learned about from my favorite person and now one I go to when I need to unplug. I didn’t have much time between drop-offs and therapy sessions to get a full day of sauna and bi-bim-bop, but I made the most of it with a 2-hour soak and a body scrub. It was glorious.
On Wed., my self-care looked a little different.
Instead of shopping, reading, or relaxing, I went to the doctor. My gift: a cardiologist, referrals for an echocardiogram and sleep study, and a listening ear who believed me when I said my heartbeat was not normal.
Let me rewind.
Ever since my pregnancy with Evie, my cardiovascular health has been off, and that’s putting it mildly. As expected, my pregnancy hypertension reared its ugly head, and the swelling started in the first trimester. I won’t go into lots of detail yet, but I’ve felt for a while that it’s never recovered. Fast forward to early September, and the hypertension and swelling is back, along with dizziness and an irregular heartbeat that can level me for an hour or so.
Like a “good woman,” I shrugged it off and charged on. In late October, I found myself with the emergency nurse hotline for our PCP urging me to go to the ER for tests.
Cardiovascular issues run rampant around my family lines, so I knew this would be something I’d have to address at some point. Maybe when I’m 60 or 70, but not in my 40s. My 40s were supposed to be the decade of freedom! It was billed as the ten-year gap where you finally don’t give a shit what other people think and trust your intuition more than ever. Where you feel in the best shape of your life! So why was I stuck in bed resting and having trouble keeping up with my kids?
My trip to the ER fast-tracked a cardiologist appointment (they have a 5-month backlog!) and a sooner follow-up visit with my PCP to see if there was anything we could start in the meantime. The soonest they could get me in was Nov. 13. My birthday. As I confirmed the time, I started to laugh - of course, this is what adulthood looks like.
The looks on the faces of my doc and nurse practitioner were a dissonance mix of happiness to see me and despair that I was with them on my birthday for this reason. I get it - on our birthdays we’re supposed to be at brunches and returning calls from well-wishers and treating ourselves with kindness.
The thing is: the best way I know how to treat myself with kindness right now is to take the doctor's visit. To not postpone finding a solution. To celebrate in small ways with my kids and Dave. To find more ways to hear “Happy Birthday Mama” unprompted for decades to come.
I’ll take the small celebrations any day if it means I get to have more of them.
If you experience any irregular cardiovascular symptoms, please go see your doctor right away. We all know that cardiovascular disease is a major health issue for women, but we often ignore the signs. Please learn more through the American Heart Association and start a conversation with your doctor.
What I’m Soaking Up
Over the past week, we’ve seen a string of Wednesday morning political quarterbacking, vote analysis, calls for grief and self-care, pure rage, and a plethora of Mary Oliver quotes. Social media has been a meme equivalent of the Fyre Festival, opening up even more questions than answers.
I’ve been a sponge, absorbing some of the analysis and commentary and trying to siphon out the blame and shaming that happens in postmortem campaign conversations. Here is a link list of conversations that have made me think:
📖 READ: What Can Women Do Now? by Xochitl Gonzalez for The Atlantic
📖 READ: Marisa Renee Lee’s post on
by📱 WATCH:
and ’s post-election debrief📖 READ: Erica L. Green of the New York Times on Harris’s concession speech:
🎧 LISTEN: The 19th’s Amendment’s podcast - Errin Haines is such a badass
📖 READ: “Paid Leave on the Ballot”, via The 19th
Please, take good care of yourself. There’s a full moon - I’m curious to see how it impacts us all this week.
