Do-Over

It’s my buddy George’s birthday, and we’re delivering his artwork to a gallery show. I haven’t seen him as much lately, because we don’t live near each other anymore, and we’ve both been busy as hookers at a Shriner’s convention. Playing delivery boy will be the extent of my present to him, demonstrating that the most valuable gift you can give is your time. That’s convenient, because it’s all I can afford. I’m also making him pay for gas.
“Wow,” says George. “What a birthday. Can I buy myself lunch, too?”
“That’s a splendid idea! I want barbecue. I mean, if you do. It’s your birthday, so we’ll do want you want… You want barbecue, right?”
“That’ll be fine, darling,” he says.
I navigate through yet another maze of traffic cones and road band-aids, grunting in frustration.
“Didn’t they just re-pave this like three months ago? Why’re they doing it again?”
“It’s the utility companies. They don’t talk to each other when they have to do repair work, so you gotta rip it up once for gas, once for power, once for pot holes… I may have the details wrong but it’s basically lack of communication.”
“How the hell do you know that?”
“Funny story. You remember the one time I rode on a motorcycle with a trick?”
“When you got back to his place and it turned out he had a slave? Didn’t he chain you up?”
“It was straps, not chains. Anyway, he was in road construction, and he explained it all.”
“When? While he and his slave were taking turns whipping you?”
“The slave didn’t GET to whip me, Topher. God, you’re so naïve. And no, this was later, over coffee and eggs, while we were all talking about work.”
“Coffee and chitchat? Not how you picture an S&M fantasy.”
“Oh, it never is. People don’t consider how much fucking energy it takes to discipline someone. Eventually you just want a glass of water and some rest.”
There’s a lot of truth in that. I’m sure that even people who have entire basements dedicated to their myriad fetishes still hang up the latex once in a while to pile on the couch and watch Desperate Housewives. It’s all about pacing yourself, I suppose.
After lunch, we share a piece of cake, and I wish George a happy 28th birthday.
“Twenty-seventh,” he corrects.
“No,” I reply. “You and I are always the same age for two months, and I’m turning twenty-nine in December. You’re twenty-eight. Happy birthday.”
“I am aware of my birth date, Topher. But this year sucked, and I deserve a second shot. So I’m doing twenty-seven again.”
“You can’t do that! I turn thirty next year! You’re not hanging out in the twenties while I face that crap on my own!”
“Darling, I guarantee Mandy will stall out at thirty for a few years. She can keep you company.”
This is so unfair. My older sister has already started telling people she’s younger than me. Just you wait- five years from now I’ll be the only one of my friends over thirty, wondering how the heck it happened. Besides, if you’re going to the trouble of a do-over, twenty-seven seems like a waste of effort. I’d redo twenty-one, which was just a shit heap of a year for me. My boyfriend wasn’t old enough to join me at a bar, so I spent that birthday drinking my first legal beer in our living room. It really set the tone for the whole year, which had me in chemotherapy a few months later. I totally deserve another twenty-one.
My grandfather went into a nursing home on my thirteenth birthday. I was supposed to have a roller-skating party, but my parents weren’t able to do it. Feeling ignored and abandoned, with that level of self-centeredness you only have at thirteen, I made myself a cake and ate the whole thing. I was fat, hopelessly in love with a boy in my class, teased mercilessly every day by Will Albee (who is now in prison, I never tire of mentioning,) and my wish was for my life to magically be completely different than it was.

Thirteen sucked. Damn it, give me that year back.
In two weeks, I’ll hit the road with the touring production of a play. According to my schedule, we’ll be spending my birthday in beautiful Washington, North Carolina. I don’t know anybody around there, and my fiancée and friends will be back in Atlanta. Apparently my options for celebration locales are limited to Bill’s Hot Dogs off Main Street, or a nearby fossil museum, but I'm doing my best to remain optimistic. Every birthday holds the possibility of being the best one yet.
The more I think about it, that’s my strongest argument against a do-over. If you barely survived the last year, your birthday can be a resetting of the clock- a chance to refresh perspective and attack life with renewed vigor.

The hope is always that your best times still lie ahead of you.
Because just like we learned from George’s long-ago S&M trick: sometimes you’ll get whipped, sometimes you’ll get coffee and eggs. Occasionally both. But the only way to find out is to learn your lessons and be open to possibility, and keep looking ahead.