Janey is Thirteen

Janey is officially a teenager.  Her birthday was on Wednesday.

Janey blowing out candles

I've been having a bit of a hard time with this birthday.  The day itself went well.  It went well mostly because we didn't really do anything for it.  That was a conscious decision.  Janey's birthdays have a checkered past.  She doesn't like things to be different.  She hates wrapped presents.  She is unpredictable with gatherings---once in a while, she is okay with them, but more often, gathering around and singing and candles and so on upset her.  My wonderful friend Maryellen, who was present at Janey's birth, made her a cake and had us over last weekend and we had candles and a sing then, so I let that be the cake of the day.  On the actual birthday, we had no cake, no presents, no ceremonies, and I think Janey enjoyed her birthday more than she has almost any other year.

Janey on her birthday morning

Some of you might know that Janey's birthday is also her older brother Freddy's birthday.  Janey was born on his 7th birthday.  That gave the day a weird distinction.  From 6 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, I had no teenager in the house, in the middle of an otherwise unbroken 17 year stretch with one.  Freddy prefers very little birthday ritual too, so his 20th birthday, shared with his sister, was also low-key.  The one ritual we did enjoy, though, is a family dance to the unofficial official birthday song of their shared birthday, "Birthday" by the Beatles, the only song I know that talks about a shared birthday.  We all danced to it, and I have to admit I was crying during much of the dance, a poignant kind of crying.

Janey and her brother Freddy

The way we passed the birthday reflects two sides of my feelings about Janey turning 13.  On one hand, I feel like we've somehow passed some kind of barrier.  We know Janey.  It's taken a long time to really know her, but I think we do now.  We knew what she would like on her day.  She liked having lots of bacon made by Daddy, a trip to McDonalds to get Freddy a birthday breakfast and Janey hash browns, another trip to McDonalds right at 10:30, the minute they started serving lunch
, to get her nuggets and fries, lots of videos, lots of snuggling, lots of music and car rides.  We know Janey well enough now to be able to give her the kind of day she loves, without trying to make it the kind of day I picture a girl's 13th birthday being.

However, the day to me also felt strangely like some kind of deadline.  I wasn't anticipating feeling this, but I did.  I think of myself at 13.  That was the year I entered high school.  I can picture myself very clearly that year, and although of course there were many life happenings far ahead of me still then, in a very real way I haven't changed.  I was me---the me I still am.  And Janey is Janey, the Janey she is now and will be.  And the birthday reflected that Janey.  She might or might not have understood it was her birthday.  She did not have friends over---she has no friends.  She didn't long for some special teenager present, like a phone.  It is not in her realm of knowledge to even know she could want something like that.  She didn't sign up for Facebook, as I remember Maryellen's daughter Julia eagerly doing on her 13th birthday.  She doesn't know what Facebook is.  I picture her life as a line that at junctures like this birthday takes a different route than most life lines.  It is, in a computer word Freddy has taught me, a hard fork, one that is never coming back to the main line.

When I think back on this birthday, I hope what I remember is all of us dancing to the Beatles, laughing and clapping and singing in a way that no only includes Janey, but celebrates her.  And my wish for her is a life full of moments like that, shining moments in her own personal life story.