59? How can that be?

There is a lot of noise from Interstate 5, just over the fence. The check-in clerk was kind enough to find me a room facing the pool, but I still hear the hum and whine of the big trucks as they head north past this truck stop plaza. Harley the Dog woke up early — even for me — to go out. I pulled on my coat over my pajamas and we walked around the L-shaped hotel complex, Harley sticking his nose in the grass as though it would reveal great secrets, me squinting in the brightness of the parking lot floodlights.

When we got back to the room, a Motel 6 with a shower that is not hot enough, I realized that it is my birthday today. And I am 59, the last year of my 50s, how is this possible!?!?

Today I will make the last leg of my drive to a bungalow in Twentynine Palms, California, where I will spend the entire month of January and the first week of February. It is my right, as a Jewish lady of a certain age, to embrace the tradition of snowbirding. January is bleak in the Pacific Northwest and I suffer from seasonal depression (okay, to be fair, I suffer from annual depression at times). When I realized I could just get out for a bit, it felt like I’d discovered flight.

Things fell into place bit by bit to make this trip possible. I can work anywhere, I was able to bring Harley, I found a friend who wanted to be in Seattle while I was gone, I know someone with a rental property…I will spend my birthday dinner in my short-term desert home, orienting myself to the new space and the new year.

I like to joke that I will start having birthdays again when we get our pre-pandemic lives back. This parks me at an eternal 56 which, face it, we’re not going back. For the first time in a while, it feels like forward is a real option. It’s a low bar, but if you’ve been here, you know that “unstuck” is a solid goal. Maybe it’s weird to wake up at a cheap truckstop hotel on your birthday, but all around me things are in motion. When the light comes up, I will be too.

Happy birthday to me.