Punishment for my sins
I only recently became a responsible adult who does things like RSVP to party invites and remember people's birthdays.However now that I've overcome the apathy I discover that I have a mental block with regards to dates. To my horror, at the age of 32 I discover that the only two birthdays I truly know are my own and my sister's. If I think carefully, I know my partner's, but since the countdown chant "XX days till my birthday" starts at least a month out, I haven't had to prioritise it and escalate to flash cards. Mum's and Dad's are tricky: once I've established that one is on Aug 22 and May 10, or May 22 and Aug 10, I have to attach one date to each parent. Since they divorced 15 years ago, I get little interparent prompting.
The only person who takes birthdays personally is my mother. Not marking her birthday is proof that I don't love her, rather than proof that I'm lazy, forgetful and broke. My personal history is littered with shameful "birthday omission" phone calls - that is, Mum calling me to tell me that I've forgotten. Awful silences while I decide whether to attempt a cover-up or calmly admit defeat and offer my resignation. Tears from her, sometimes matte monosyllables.
I should explain that her emotional involvement in this issue is particularly intense, tangled up in post-divorce "you love your father more than me" paranoia. Proving your love in this kind of situation is like going to the gym - you can't do it once and then it's done; it's a 3 time a week job. And you are never fit enough. Your stomach is never truly flat.
So now that I don't operate at the stretched outer edge of my overdraft, and am not swept up in a selfish boozy whirlpool, I have accepted that I must remember my mother's birthday. I must purchase a gift. I must get it in the post.
In fact, between Mum and I it has become a subtly ritualised event to help me over the line, rugby team try style. When I have decided that hers is the birthday in August (yes, yes, Dad's is the one in May, he's happy with a phone-call) I ask several months in advance what she would like. She replies. Several weeks later I forget that I have asked and ask again. She tells me again. She delicately mentions it with a couple of weeks out eg: "Alan and I are thinking of going to the Bowls Club on my birthday". This prompts me to find the present. Thrilled with myself, I then look at the wrapped present on the table for weeks until I realise that her birthday is tomorrow and I get it into an Expresspost envelope just as the post office is closing.
But this year, now that I am a mother myself, I am determined to post it well in advance. Express Posting might leave a small window of "she doesn't love me enough to post it 2 days in advance" and there must be no love-doubt Window whatsoever. After all, this is Mum's first birthday without her own mother (our Zen and the Art of Being a Grandmother) who died 2 months ago.
This year Mum was getting a framed photo of Will. This wasn't all about new baby narcissism on my part - she had asked for it when our photographer friends had kindly done a 6 month photo shoot. I had found a good 3-photo frame at the Surry Hills variety store which was going to be awkward to post but would look classy on her wall. It was 3 pm, 2 days before her birthday. I had to find wrapping paper and figure out a way to post it, before picking up my partner from work at 5 pm. But it was all looking very possible.
The next thing I know, Will is making a dizzying grab for the frame just as I am reaching for the receipt from the Australia Post employee after bubble wrap purchase to protect frame..... I hear a collective gasp from the 20-person queue behind me.... and DOWN comes the frame with a splendid tinkling crash-of-a-million-pieces-of-glass. From this moment on it becomes a macho race against the clock to get a gift in the post, T minus 1 hours 40, your time starts now. New photo frame? New photo (ones in present frame scratched through misadventure)? New packaging and postage solution? Attractive wrapping achieved in car with wailing "why are you not focussed on me" baby? Buying postage for new packaging solution, getting it into the mail box and still picking up partner from work at 5 pm? No worries! Anything is possible when you are operating on adrenaline, Mother-Terror and the ghosts of forgotten birthdays past. "First birthday without her mother, first birthday without her mother" I chant under my breath as I viciously wind bubble-wrap around the new, tragically small and inferior frame with spare photo dragged from glovebox. "No love-doubt window, no love-doubt window" as I dash into pharmacy for last minute auxilliary birthday gift (eye-shadow) with 10 kg baby bouncing in baby harness.
Am I being punished for the sins of my past? I have no doubt whatsoever.
Still hyperventilating, the package is posted in the slot with 2 minutes to spare. I lean against the postbox, trying to soothe still-squalling first born son strapped to my chest. I feel no elation, but only hollow anger against the Fates. I limp slowly back to the car. Click baby into carseat. Negotiate nightmare traffic to pick my partner up from work.
Many hours later, after recovering, I emailed my mother to let her know that the gift was in the post. Being a mother, she loves this kind of communication. It's like watching a Current Affair, an inevitable sign of old age. I gave her an extremely short account of the incident in the post office. Not to make her feel bad, not at ALL, or even to elicit sympathy, but to make sure that she knows that I love her enough to NOT GIVE UP and succumb to dirty Expresspost.
Her email back: "Thanks for letting me know that it is in the post, we will look out for it. My birthday's not for 2 weeks".
posted by KT @ 3:15 AM
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