So, I'm now fifty-six-years old, and although it is still my birthday in California where I was born, it's all over but the wrinkling here in Seychelles.

I had a pleasant enough day, although it was little like the imagined happenings that came with the numerous ... and very welcome -- thanks to all who conveyed lovely greetings! ... birthday wishes that came my way. Those all assumed that the kids and I would be passing the day beach-side, basking in the sun, lolling in the sea, and generally doing all the stuff that people living on a tropical island are supposed to be doing instead of working, driving the kids to school and attending to the endless loads of laundry that accumulate almost mystically on a daily basis.

Sorry to disappoint, but my birthday was spent working, driving Sam to school and doing laundry. Of course unlike most days, this active, if not inspired, schedule was topped off with some lovely gifts, and that lent a festive air.

Birthdays for me, like New Years Eve, are times for retrospection, which always kicks off a level of melancholia that can take me a few days to shake. I've learned to use the time between the onset of melancholy and the getting back to my normal state of letting life happen as it does to let myself wallow in the bit of gloom that comes with missing people I love, to indulge in a bit of dwelling on opportunities lost, acknowledging dreams that are unlikely to ever be fulfilled, taking a look at regrets with an eye toward making decisions that will have me growing any more of those, and stumbling a few steps down memory lane.

Casting my mind back over other birthdays, a few always come to mind. I remember my fourth ... a party of about twenty kids with a long table set up in the garage, with balloons all over the place, that had me feeling so very special.

My first big girl birthday when my mom took me and my three best friends from the 'burbs into the city for lunch in a restaurant and a movie -- "Pollyanna", it was.

I remember my eighteenth birthday ... nine-months pregnant with my first child and every present being some fat lady nightgown to wear in the hospital.

My forty-second, celebrated on a beach in Seychelles during a backpacking trip around the world when the man of my dreams, my soul mate, my perfect fit, wandered in with a group of guests and prompted such great and wonderful changes in my life.

So, here I am now ... fifty-six, mother of four, grandmother to one, living on a tropical island half way around the world from where I began with my British-born husband and small, Cambodian-born children.

Wow. What a ride!