Our Chanukah Miracle

If you had asked me a few days ago how I felt about Chanukah this year, I would have uttered an unequivocal "meh". With no family in town we were resigned to spending a quiet Chanukah at home. The only plan we had made was to invite a couple over with their baby on the first night for dinner. Reading about other people kvetching about being invited to too many Chanukah parties and receiving too many gifts for their kids, I found myself wishing I was someone else, or at the very least, someplace else.

I turned 40!

(This was posted on Kveller.com on Dec. 20th)

Tomorrow I will turn 40. I am big on birthdays, just not my own. Still, I usually have a few things on my wish list. This year, though, I don’t want anything but more of the same.

I never thought I would become a mother in my late 30s. I thought it was going to happen in my 20s. Somehow, I lost track of time in Los Angeles and was 35 before I knew it. I told myself that I had to find my husband within the next five years or it was never going to happen. So I moved to New York, found my beshert, and had a baby.