Happy 37th Birthday... Again

I am not the fun friend.

It’s okay, I know this about myself. I am not the person you call three beers in to come to a great party. When you stop drinking at 23 somehow “fun” isn’t one of the words people use to describe you. And I’m okay with that.

Despite the fact that most of my friends are now mothers I somehow am the “Mom” of the group. There will always be a first aid kit in my purse. Your children will get thoughtful and educational book selections for the holidays. And of course I still send birthday cards with a handwritten note inside.

Well.. until this year.

Something about licking an envelope and making a series of people touch it before it gets to someone who may feel like spraying the paper down with Lysol seemed inappropriate. (Yes, I’m also that friend who worries about the appropriateness of things. I’m a treat.)

Is it trivial to complain about birthday cards and parties in the midst of a pandemic? Yes.

Will that stop me? Of course not.

You see, for every “Mom friend” there is a “FUN! FRIEND!”. For me that person is Leanne. I have known her since 1990 and despite not living in the same city or having ever attended the same schools we are still friends. In fact that goes for our whole group. Over the years spouses and babies have been added, but the core girls still remain. I would argue that our friendship is stronger now than it has ever been. And because we’ve had to work to keep it up, we appreciate it more.

But Leanne, the FUN! FRIEND!, is not just my fun friend, she’s everyone’s fun friend. While I was at home reading Peter Mayle she was out travelling the world. At last count I think she’s been to 30 countries. Her bravery at backpacking alone all over the globe astounded me. As did her jumping out of planes. She was a bartender, and travel agent, who sang and played piano on the side. Everywhere she went more and more people would flock to her.

If I were writing a romantic comedy she would be the impossibly effervescent one who got the guy I, the nerd, always wanted. In real life that only happened once. And to be fair, she didn’t know. Plus we were thirteen. But I could never hold it against her, because while she might be fun and talented and popular she is unfailingly kind.

(I mean, really… leave some qualities for the rest of us!)

Today is Leanne’s birthday also known as her yearly rooftop barbecue. An occasion I took two days off work for last year. It’s an event that has become the unofficial start to summer on the social calendars of many people in the Lower Mainland. There have been years that I got there at noon and didn’t leave until 5 in the morning. It is the only party I am guaranteed to attend each year.

Except now.

Because now we have to love each other from far away and through facebook messages. It’s the right thing to do. I should know, I’m the boring responsible one who definitely would yell at someone having a Corona party. But it doesn’t make it any less sad.

When you turn 38 in quarantine no one decorates cars in balloons and drives by your house in a birthday parade. Even with gas prices being so low.

Instead I propose a new law, no one over the age of thirty gets older this year. We all can just carry over this age until a time when we’re allowed to see each other again.

So, Happy 37th Birthday Leanne!

For as long as it takes.