Today I am 43

It's true. Today is my birthday. Me and Georgia O'Keefe.

I would like to say I had a huge party with a million friends who all love me. But that would be a lie.

I was going to invite 12 of my coolest women friends over for dinner. I was going to have my wondeful hubbie cook dinner for us all--his legendary paella of love--which no one can eat and be unaffected by. It is pure happy food. Or, as the Japanese say, it is umami. Deeply comforting on some primal level. I imagined Jonathan coming in with his toke and his apron, charming, witty and wonderful, as he is, and all of us drinking Sofia champagne and laughing and telling wonderful stories. All my truly awesome fabulous friends getting to know each other. I would have had my oldest, dearest friends, and new friends who excite me, who have more recently come into my life, who just delight me. Each would have brought a poem, or some words or a quote of inspiration. That would have been their gift to me.

But as the day drew nearer, and I thought about what I really really wanted, I changed. If I shut out what I am supposed to want, how you are supposed to celebrate, I realized that more than anything I really wanted to be alone. I wanted one glorious day where I did not take care of anyone else. Where I truly got to be queen for a day. And did I mention, I wanted to be alone.

It was a strange realization about myself.

But I listened. And as soon as I decided I knew it was right. And so, today I got to sleep late. Glorious. I got to have all those vivid, hyper-real technicolor dreams you can only have when you sleep too late and get to just keep dozing off over and over again. The fun ones you remember and can talk about over breakfast, if anyone wants to listen.

I came down and my sons came running with beautiful cards they had made me. Jonathan had cooked me up a perfect Hilary breakfast: panettone baked warm in the oven, bacon (protein, yum) a mocha of espresso and the finest Tcho hot chocolate. I sat in my silk bathrobe and cuddled with Jonathan and my boys. Theo fitted me for a crown, and made it while I was out.

Then I got sad and took it out on Jonathan (I won't publicize that here...but doesn't everyone get some version of the birthday blues? Tell me you do! Tell me I am not alone!).

Then I went to Koreatown and soaked in the Beverly Hills hot springs. I let the alkaline water make me smooth and slippery, and imagined, again, the deadness I do not need from the last year wash away. A Korean granny in black underwear scrubbed me clean and I floated there for hours underground near a stone Buddha. It reminded me of Japan, of the neighborhood o-furos, of scrubbing your friends backs and having them scrub yours. I steamed and dunked myself in cold water til my heart felt like it would jump out of my chest. I lay there and cleared my mind.

Then I went and worked on my novel in a cafe with a big, foamy cappucino, and came home for a perfect dinner: the paella of love, made my Jonathan, and a cake made (and tasted) by my boys. It was perfect.

The weekend was perfect. I saw a friend, got better, read my new Barbara Kingsolver novel, and skimmed my new Alice Waters cookbook, which i love love LOVE.

And here is what I realized: It has taken me until I am 43 to quiet the voices of society, the world, my programming--that tell me what I should do on a certain occasion, and to listen to what I really and truly wanted to do on my birthday. What made me happy, even if most people would find it dull. And so, as I get ready to go upstairs, I celebrate that in myself. That after four decades and a little on this earth, I can finally listen a little bit better to my own heart, and let it have its way.

Good night, friends.