36.

You know, as much as I joke-whine about it, I'm generally pretty okay with getting older. So I did not expect to greet the approach of this day with depression and tears. But then Saturday was the memorial for my uncle, one of my dad's older brothers. I went, and I missed my uncle, and I missed all of the other aunts and uncles on that side who have died over the last few years; and being around that side of the family made me miss my dad in a way that I haven't in a long time. And all of that carried over to Sunday, when the internet church-cast we were watching sang a hymn that my grandpa on my mom's side used to love, and play and sing every time he got the chance, and try to get me to sing with him, and I never did, because I was a snotty teenager and it was all just too humiliating to even contemplate, singing old-fashioned hymns with my grandpa. And that made me miss my grandpa in a way that I haven't in probably a decade.

So by yesterday afternoon, I was all primed to be sad and weepy and to think about mortality, and when I remembered that it was almost my birthday, of course the focused switched to MY mortality. I will be 36, I remembered, which to my mind might as well be 46. I will be 36 tomorrow, and I don't have a job. 36, and no job, no real profession to speak of, limited prospects, and my baby oven is getting old. 36, no job, no prospects, no solid income, an aging baby oven, and in the last few months I have been wanting to have a baby and be a mom more than I ever expected I would, or believed I could, but I can't, because we have no solid income, and no job prospects, and now maybe I never will, because did I mention I'm about to be 36? Pain and woe and suffering, and life is awful, and then we're all going to die.

That was yesterday. That was the end of being 35, for me.

Today, though, I am 36, and life goes on. I'm 36, and life is actually pretty okay. I don't have a steady job, but I have work that will look good on my resume, even if I don't get paid for it. I do, actually, have a few prospects, and I'm laying the groundwork to go into business for myself, to work from home, and if that works out, then it will be a perfect time to start a family. I'm 36, and I own my own home, and I have an awesome husband, and we're doing okay staying afloat while I get my business started, and I have a novel almost ready to shop around to agents and publishers, and it's cold, which I don't like, but the sun is shining and it's an otherwise beautiful day, and life is good. Life is beautiful, and Awesome Husband has promised to give me a neck rub later, and to finally install curtain rods in the bedroom for my birthday, and that seems really mundane, but these are the things that matter and make really great presents when you're 36. And tonight, I get to eat pie.

Today is a happy birthday, and life goes on.