When I was five, my mother was exasperated by my continued inability to tie my shoes.\u00c2\u00a0 People kept telling me that the rabbit would run around the tree and into the hole, and I just sat there holding the laces in my hand and wondering what the hell they were talking about.\u00c2\u00a0 What rabbit?\u00c2\u00a0 I was having my birthday party in the summer that year (my real birthday is on Christmas, so we always celebrated it “whenever”);\u00c2\u00a0 I remember my mother said little girls who were five could tie their own shoes, and I wouldn’t get to be five until I could do it.\u00c2\u00a0 Of course she simply meant to motivate me with a deadline, but I really believed that unless I learned to tie my shoes, I would never be five.\u00c2\u00a0 I would be doomed to be 4 years old for the rest of my life.\u00c2\u00a0 I immediately went and got help from an older kid down the street – a glamorous, capable 9 year old -\u00c2\u00a0 and crossed “learn to tie shoes” off the list of life’s accomplishments.<\/p>\n
Somehow over the years that got to be the way I thought about my birthday:\u00c2\u00a0 not a celebration of being a year older<\/em>,