Or should I call this muted, belated birthdays?
Sunday Blog 236 – 7 June 2026
Maybe it’s a man thing, indifference about birthdays. My father was always slightly bemused by the fuss we created on his big day, but he went along with it cheerfully enough. Darling husband (who may or may not be somewhat like my father) doesn’t want parties or attention on his birthday, not even the big milestone ones.
Mum however was committed to birthdays, and that drove our family culture of a gathering with cake, candles, singing happy birthday and, of course, presents. When a gathering couldn’t be achieved, the happy birthday song was a must. Wherever I was in the world, Mum would warble out happy birthday, either as a live performance or as a recorded phone message.
This birthday, I travelled to Brisbane for work, so I wasn’t home to bask in any celebrations that might have been going on. Darling husband was in Japan, cycling. The whole day went by with only a tide of Facebook posts and ripple of voice messages (including one rendition of happy birthday). No presents, no cake, no candles. Mum is no longer here to sing to me. But I mean, I’m 61, so I should be able to handle all that.
Still, it’s got me reflecting on seven year cycles of my life. I even created a little photo grid.
Seven. The year I confessed to my Catholic parents that the nun who was teaching me was hitting me. It all came to a head when I wet my pants and had to be taken home to be changed. Mum must have known somehow, even before I told. She didn’t let Sr Imelda in the front door. That night, the story tumbled out of me, Dad went to the school the very next day, stood over the diminutive Sr Imelda in the bitumenised playground, warned her off ever hitting me again. She never did. I look pretty happy posing on the beetle, anyway.
Fourteen. The year I went to Europe with my parents and my sister Gay; we were the two youngest and it was cheaper to take us than enrol us in boarding school. In the image I’m posing in my birthday ugg boots and padded vest. I bloody loved that padded vest. Europe is still several months away. Travelling to Europe from 1979 Perth was like orbiting the moon and looking down on the earth, everything now in its right proportions. The constricted sameness of my Perth life was blasted clean away. I vowed to return to Europe.
Twenty-one. The year I talked my parents into hosting my birthday party at theirs. I had significantly under-reported the likely turnout. See in the pic posing next to the cake. My hair was short, I’d given up cigarettes, was nearly finished my degree and newly single. Europe was on my list; but first, a career.
Twenty-eight. I’d been living in London for three years by then; my museum career in Perth was continuing after a fashion, in London. Italy was on my doorstep as was all continental Europe, but I could rarely afford to go. I was single again, and finally understood the importance of women owning their own property. I was on the cusp of buying my own place.
Thirty-five. I was back in Perth, living close to my parents for support but looking to make my own way again. I’d finished with museums, then taken up teaching in Greece, a couple of solitary, tough years ending in an unexpected pregnancy. I’d had my daughter back in Perth but returned to the grand old city of Thessaloniki to see if I could stitch together our Greek Australian family. I couldn’t. I was in the process of selling the London place and buying a home for me and my daughter, looking out for a way to settle down as a solo mama.
Forty-two. I’d navigated buying the new home aged thirty-six, met the love of my life, then survived a home invasion six months after buying my supposedly forever solo mama home. The love of my life vacillated, wouldn’t commit, and by forty-two I’d made the break for a new start, back to living near my parents. And then guess what? The love of my life decided to stop distancing, and we agreed to be married. I was well into my new non-profit career by then, museums very distant in the rear vision mirror of my life.
Forty-nine. I came out, finally as an author, with a self-published memoir debriefing the home invasion. I quit my first managerial role in a non-profit, so I’d be freer to write. I decided I’d become an entrepreneur, metamorphose into a life coach. But instead, a new non-profit role careened into the picture, and my business dream boat was torpedoed before it could even launch.
Fifty-six. Seven years of stewarding the non-profit ran into the concrete wall of Covid-19. How could I realistically remain at the helm of a patient advocacy non-profit, and not give a shit about Covid? I couldn’t. Nor could I retire. I’ve bumbled and stumbled into a rhythm of working a little bit, writing much more. Transitioning to retirement, boho-style.
Sixty-three in 2028. How we change, life streaming away, year on year. Let’s imagine my 63. Will I still be working? I think so. Will I still be writing? 100%
According to Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ Women Who Run With the Wolves, this is the stage of re-evaluating life, prioritising our life’s work still to be done. And there’s more, so much more. Estes has mapped out seven year cycles up to 105 and beyond, included in the pic below.
And with that, I’m calling it a wrap on the birthday.
