Tiffan Schmidt, Author of Send me a Sign (2012)
Books and Babies and BIRTHDAYS
It’s my birthday today (cupcakes for everyone!). I officially turned 32 at some early o’clock.
But I want to write about my 30th birthday—and since it’s MY day, you should let me. Or, rather, I want to write about the months leading up to my 30th birthday.
Here’s a fact about me: I like plans. I make lists.*
I had a list entitled: THINGS TO ACCOMPLISH BEFORE 30.
It was a list I made sometime after college and before the big three-oh. It was full of gems like:
Learn to speak Italian—*brushes dust off Rosetta Stone software*
Run a marathon — *thinks fondly of the six months I spent in PT*
Buy a house —*Oh, this one we DID do! Remind me to send in my mortgage check*
But there were two incomplete items that broke my heart. They were the first things on the list:
1) Have children!
2) Publish first novel!
Neither of these is an over-night accomplishment. Since I’d paid attention in middle school health class, nine months before September 10, 2010, I was pretty darn sure that the first one wasn’t going to happen. I was feeling bleak about the second one too.
In that fun way that my mind works, I began to fixate on these two things: Books & Babies. Books & Babies. My thoughts bounced between the two topics like some horribly depressing game of ping-pong.
I convinced myself that if I didn’t meet my deadline for the dreams, they were never going to happen. I let myself feel that I’d failed. That I was a failure. And since I was about to turn THIRTY! I started to believe that I was about to be an OLD failure.**
It was STUPID. I fully admit this. *** My ability to write wasn’t going to evaporate when the digit at the front of my age changed from two to three, and neither was my ability to be a mother. I’d made the deadlines for my dreams, and I could change them.
So I did. *Feel free to cue triumphant music or mentally insert some .gif of great-achievement using your preferred Olympian*
I still wanted books & babies—that was never going to change—but I eliminated the expiration date. They became LIFE goals. The only deadline was the ultimate DEADline.
And on my thirtieth birthday I blew out my candles without even a thought to my long-lost list.
It’s possible the wish I made had something to do with SEND ME A SIGN, which was about to go on sub—and would sell that spring when I was 30 and a half. And that will FINALLY be in bookstores in three weeks!**** But I might be wrong. It’s probably more likely that my candle-wish had something to do with my five-months gigantic twin belly and for a safe arrival of The Schmidtlets who are currently tearing around my house like the wild 22-month-old imps they are.
Today’s lesson: Don’t give your dreams a deadline.
Also, cake is delicious… and frosting is surprisingly difficult to remove from a dog’s fur. (Thank you, Schmidtlets!)
* I like to pretend my chaos is CONTROLLED chaos. Plans & lists help with this illusion.
**Thirty is not old. Neither is 32. I’ll let you know when I reach OLD, but I don’t expect it to happen for a good long time.
*** Hello, Hindsight! Lookin’ good!
****Actually, three weeks & one day… Yes, I HAVE had a countdown on my wall for the past few months.
Send Me a Sign Blurb
Mia’s used to being the perfect teenager: pretty, popular, smart, caring. But that was before she was diagnosed with leukemia. Now, her father has become Captain Cancer Facts and her mother is obsessed with maintaining Mia’s image. Her maybe-more-than-a-friend, Gyver, is judging her decision not to tell the other cheerleaders that she’s sick. Her life’s about to change and she’s terrified by the loss of control.
Mia’s always been superstitious, but as her body starts to feel like it belongs less to her and more to the doctors and their needles, she becomes irrationally dependent on horoscopes, fortune cookies, and good luck charms. As chemotherapy replaces cheerleading and platelets replace parties, Mia just wants normal back. But despite searching for clues in everything from songs on the radio to her Magic 8 Ball, her future is coming up Outlook not so good.
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