Monday, March 28, 2022

Happy golden birthday to our beloved daughter!

 

Apparently your golden birthday is when you turn the age of your birth date, which means our girl is celebrating her golden birthday today. She has a huge case study to present for work this morning. She worked on it through her birthday weekend, in between bunch with her girls on Saturday, a birthday party with friends on Saturday evening, after which they all went roller skating, then brunch with friends again on Sunday, followed by a basketball game in the evening. She still got the deck done for her presentation. I know because she FaceTimed me last night near 11 PM, exhausted, hoping I would consent to stay on the call with her as she worked through final details. She calls it body doubling. Her love was behind her on the couch, no doubt also worn out from so much extroverted activity all weekend. They're both introverts with extrovert tendencies, meaning they can party with the best of them, but they need to recharge away from the madding crowd afterward. At that moment, her love was also gaping in shock at the unfortunate Will Smith-Chris Rock spectacle being broadcast from the Academy Awards stage. But my girl couldn't focus on that yet. She needed to finish up her presentation deck and email it before midnight.

I'm brain dead and out of words, she moaned. But I need to write a little something about myself and why I'm interested in this case. 

Why did you leave it till so late, I asked her, trying to assess whether I was brain dead myself at that hour.

Not helpful Mom, she said ruefully.

Dig up some old cover letters for jobs, I suggested. See how you presented yourself in them, and crib from that. 

That seemed to spark a crack through which words could flow, and in no time she had composed three short paragraphs, which she then read to me out loud so she could hear and fix word repetitions and phrase echoes. I saw the final version of the deck she created. It was appealingly designed, beautifully OCD in the layout of each slide. Maybe my real calling is graphic design, she said when I complimented the appearance of the work. I'm sure the content was on point, too, but it had to do with  conclusions drawn from marketing profiles and data points and might as well have been written in Urdu.

I think you should put your head shot on the right because of the way you're leaning, I suggested for her required opening slide. 

I know, she said, but the next slide has a big graphic on the right, so the eye needs some relief before that. 

Can I tell you how much it thrills me that she takes such care not just with content, but also with how her work is visually presented? She got that from me, I told my husband with no false humility after I got off the call. With no pique whatsoever, he agreed.

But what makes me happiest right now is that she seems to be in a happy and connected period of life. She weathers her stresses, wades through her anxieties, but overall, things seem good for her in this moment. For this zest for life and sense of joy to always fuel her days is my primary wish for her on this, the golden birthday of our golden daughter. 


15 comments:

  1. Smart, grounded and beautiful. Happy Birthday to your golden girl!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Happy happy golden birthday to you very beautiful and lovely daughter.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy happy birthday to your pride and joy. She's exquisite.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Happy birthday to your beautiful, golden girl! I can hear Stevie Wonder’s golden lady!
    Xoxo
    Barbara

    ReplyDelete
  5. I had not heard of the Golden Birthday. Learned something!
    Here's hoping the presentation goes well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Happy birthday to your daughter. It sounds like she has resilience and I'm guessing she learned that from her mom and dad:)

    ReplyDelete
  7. You are such a good mama to body double her for that project! I might well have just said, "Honey, I'm tired. You shouldn't waited so late."
    Moot point, thank god.
    I know you're proud of her and it really does say volumes that she wants you to be the one to help with the final push.
    You have a million reasons to be proud of that girl, today and every golden day of her life.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Happy Birthday to your daughter on her golden birthday. The light that shines through her eyes is a joy to behold! She is brilliant, radiant, loving and loved.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I will say it again- Great parenting, great genes!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Happy B-day to your daughter. She's smart, accomplished and living a good life... I'd say that's every mothers dream.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Happy Birthday from England to your beautiful, clever girl.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Happy golden birthday to your daughter! I can hear your pride in her shining through your words.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Happy Birthday to your beautiful daughter. All we want is for our children to be happy, isn't it? Everything else is sprinkles on the cupcake.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Laughing. I chased my girls around all through their teens to make them pay attention to the visuals of posters, projects, etc. Their content was always way up there - but when I asked where was the white space, I got 'the look'.
    I now have no idea what their content ought to be. One University prof, one high level diplomat. And the prof has to supervise poster presentations; the diplomat is responsible for on-line presentations Hah.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Happy birthday to your daughter! It must be amazing to see these people you created grow and thrive and demonstrate such attention and creativity to their careers and passions.

    I wasn't even talking yet when I had my "Golden Birthday." Doesn't seem fair!

    ReplyDelete