A birthday weekend!

The sun from outside is caught in an adorable bouquet of pale pink tulips on my sofa table. On the floor next to the balcony swimming in light, more tulips, a darker pink and a red-yellowish, and then the gorgeous vase with ten big white roses. The kitchen downstairs is dressed in more flowers, balloons and silver ribbons. The light is back and the birthday season is here!

I have been extremely week these last few weeks. The pain is taking it’s toll and Monday evening I even fainted and fell over. Fortunately Trouble 2 and Audrey were here and I came back from the fog seeing their concerned faces above me. I was lucky though, I was okay, only a bit shaken and light headed. The morning after I woke up wanting a bloody beef and red wine. Craving it. Like my body needed concentrate of powerful life savors. Well, I didn’t have it for breakfast, but for dinner the very same day!

Since the cancer I have made it a thing celebrating my birthday. I am not wining about getting older any more (well, that’s not entirely true, it’s more about what I still haven’t accomplished at this high age and the meaning of my life though) but instead organizing birthday parties I am not able to contribute to in any other way than the organizing itself.

Friday morning I woke up from Trouble 2 and Audrey singing at my bedside, carrying a tray with tulips and cake. Yes, that’s how we start our birthdays in Sweden, cake for breakfast and in bed. Only, it must have been ten years or so since it happened to me. Trouble 2 and Audrey have been staying with me this week, but I honestly didn’t expect a morning celebration, and it made me very happy. An then I had something really nice to look forward to in the afternoon: my neighbor Jenny and my mother’s cousin Bertil were going to have dinner with us!

Bertil is born the day before me, and Thursday he turned 93. Yes. Bertil is an astonishing man with a sharp intellect, wonderful stories to tell and in the same time contemporary and fully updated. At the table five people at the age of 21,25,33,58 and 93, just the perfect mix! And what made it even more special was the fact that I could actually sit at the dining table for the first time since the Holidays!

So, that’s the first birthday party. The warming up party. My friend Mats’ birthday is only a couple of days apart from mine, and we have made it a tradition to celebrate together. Yesterday the two of us and his wife Agneta got together here at my place with our children and their girlfriends, wife and boyfriend. It was a potluck, and boy were we lucky with the pots! Not I of course, but I payed for the wine, that was my humble contribution.

The evening had an agenda:
1. Attach my new TV on the wall
2. Have dinner
3. Watch Lulin

I bought a new TV set before Christmas. More on that some other time, it’s a topic for it self. Anyway, the TV has been sitting on the floor leaning against the wall for close to two months now. Trouble 1 & Trouble 2, Audrey, Fay and cousin Johannes have tried twice to get it up on the wall and failed. We needed to call in expertise. We needed Mats.

When you ask Mats for help in practical matters he brings a good part of his work shop, to be on the safe side. And he takes on the assignment with great focus and a cheery mind. He is also very thorough and precise with the details. Engaging Mats on a task guarantees a job well and safely done. I will marry Mats in my next life. Agneta knows and I have her blessing.

So, Mats set his mind on the TV job and there were several hands to help. Other hands set the table. Pots, balloons, silver ribbons, flowers and my Portuguese Matteus dining ware. We were twelve at my table, having tasty food, nice wine and low carb cake. Mats and I were celebrated in the loveliest way, and I am so grateful for my dear friends and all our kids putting up with my party organizing, showing up on my calls!

And so the grand finale! Trouble 2 premiered his first short film a couple of weeks ago. I was crying my eyes out when I couldn’t be there, but I was not the only one missing out on the opening. So yesterday, after dinner, on my fabulous new TV set now on the wall, Trouble 2 made a special birthday viewing of his soft horror short Lulin. I won’t spoil it, who knows where and when you will have the chance to watch it, but I can tell you my living room was dense from the experience. Thank you Trouble 2 for making our birthday party complete!

For two days I was able to sit at the table having dinner, I haven’t spent that much time upright in more than six weeks. And I can sense energy streaming in to my body. The sun is finally back melting some darkness away. I hope this weekend is a turning point. I hope I can keep a bit of that energy. It’s very fragile, I know.When the pain hits it is making the calls. When my blood pressure drops I have nothing to say. Loosing power comes so much easier than gaining it. And I don’t have a lot of good strategies when it comes to this I am sorry to say, I would need that.

But tonight I am incredibly happy and grateful about a wonderful birthday weekend, and the best of friends and family. The March light, a fabulous TV set floating on my wall and beautiful flowers spread all over my house.