The Big Day

It’s been a busy month. Turning 25 made me step up my “grown and sexy” game, which has been very time consuming to be quite honest. In any case, here are the Cliffs Notes. Details are forthcoming.

Pre-Birthday Preparation – Stumbled upon a ridiculous department store sale with BCBG dresses selling at dirt cheap prices. Birthday dress, check! Later that month, I took a trip to the David Yurman store with Anisa (finally)! After much deliberating, I finally settled on the anchor piece for my collection - classic cable-knit 7mm bracelet with a gold dome. Timeless.

The Big Day!! – Took the day off. Woke up to drop Jada off for a quick oil change, and headed to the mall for a facial. Next stop, hairdresser. Wave bye-bye to the tresses! I cut those locks OFF… and I must admit, the look is growing on me. After that, I headed to the liquor store to prepare for a little pre-game at my place. The entire time, I’m receiving hourly phone calls, text messages and gchat messages from the boy on my blackberry. Though he couldn’t be in my city for the weekend, he was making the day special. I appreciated that. With tequila and triple sec in tow, I headed to a nail parlor to meet Anisa and Cece for pedicures. Screams, screams and more screams. Oh my gooooosh! It’s so short! Do you love it?! I’m smiling. What a difference a haircut makes! I like the new ‘do, but I don’t love it. The bangs are too short, and I guess I should have given my hairdresser more direction before she chopped it all off. But, hey, it’s only hair and it will grow back. I’m 25!!! A new look for a new quarter in my life will be amazing. The pre-game flies by as Dionne arrives alongside other friends. The night blurs into morning, and I wake up with hilarious pictures in my Nikon. Even more hilarious is the fact that I wake up on my couch, with friends asleep on my floor, and in my bed. What a night. Dionne makes us brunch with groceries purchased from her food stamps (don’t ask). We eat, listen to music, watch movies and basically waste the day recounting drunken stories from the night before. How fun.

The following Tuesday – Mommy and Auntie are in town for a play. It’s nice to have them in town. Of course, Mom had MUCH to say about the new apartment and how I should be organizing and decorating my new space. I had already been stressed that the place wasn’t fully unpacked (nor fully cleaned from my bday festivities) but whatever. She’s seen me at my worst… I’m sure a messy apartment was nothing in comparison. Wednesday night we attended a play entitled “Miss Evers’ Boys” which took an in-depth look at the Tuskegee Experiments (read: exploitations) of African American men affected by Syphilis. Any story that can make you laugh, cry and deeply think about the human condition in one sitting is truly a masterpiece. Indeed, Kenny Leon’s production of this story did just that. Jasmine Guy’s performance as Miss Evers was enlightening and tragic at the same time. She captivated her audience, transitioning between scenes of her testimony as an old woman and scenes from her younger days as a nurse with the Tuskegee men. The story itself, while heartbreaking, was thoughtfully and carefully depicted in the play. Bravo.

That same night, during the middle of the production, I received a text from the boy. For the first time since college, without solicitation or warning, he told me he loved me. He told me he loved me. I sat, watching the play, completely unfocused, and let the words marinate. I re-read the text over and over again in my head. Those weren’t the words he used verbatim… but the “L” word was definitely in play, in a way that I had never heard (or read) from him. I was on Cloud 9. Happy Birthday to me.