55

I turned 55 on Sunday, Feb. 2, the Groundhog Day. And it hit me hard.

I do occasionally suffer from the Birthday Blues. You know, no one's getting younger and every year is another wrinkle on your face and in other places. I know, I know, there are a lot of people even in this community who might think, "55! I wish I were that young again!" and I do understand them. I really do. We all have different perspectives on our own age.

But I still get hit by Birthday Blues. More often in the recent years, mostly because I live alone now and even though my friends always do something to celebrate with me, I still feel alone. My mother and my sister (who is exactly three years and three days younger, so we usually have two celebratory Skype sessions for each of us) live across the big Atlantic pond and I have no idea when I will be able to see them again, because of Putin's war in Ukraine. I haven't seen my mother in person since 2019 and my sister - since 2023 when she was able to come to Bishkek for a week while I was there.

Here in America, it's just me and my son. He goes to college 750 miles away, and this year, knowing how important my birthday is for me, he came up to spend it with me. It helped that it fell on a Sunday and he wanted to do a documentary on the Groundhog Day.

So, on the day, groggy after a sleepless stretch of celebrations on the Gobbler's Knob, my son took me out for a birthday lunch and then I drove him to Cleveland to catch a flight back south. Before I dropped him off at the airport, we spent a couple of hours at the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite museums.

I absolutely loved their Impressionism Gallery that holds some major works of art by Degas (my favorite large painting of his is the cover photo for this story, but the museum also has a couple of other smaller ballerina paintings), Monet, Pissaro, Cezanne, and Renoir. They also have several Gauguins and a couple of Van Goghs I haven't seen in person before, including these Poplars.

I could stay in that gallery for much longer, but we had timed tickets to the special temporary exhibition titled "Picasso and Paper."

Oh, what a treat to the eyes and soul it was! It deserves a separate story for the Art community, but I was deeply impressed by how Picasso used paper as a versatile medium not only for sketches of his paintings and sculptures, but also as main material in collages and paper sculptures. It was especially cool to see some of the paper sketches right next to the final paintings or sculptures, as illustrated in these pictures:

We left the museum 10 minutes before closing and I drove my son to the airport. I held up pretty well saying good-bye for another long stretch that I won't see my son (probably not until his graduation in May) but on the drive back I broke down, swallowed by the wave of self-pity and doubt. Why am here, alone again? How long am going to continue like this? I have a job that I love, but I do long to be closer to my son and my family.

I tried to call my friend on the phone but she was not available. So crying and wiping my tears, I got back to my town. I did call my boss during the drive saying that I was a mess and might need to take the next day off for mental health. He understood. Little did I know that he was already going through his own loss and grieving at the time I called, which put things into a different perspective later.

When I finally got home, I remembered my pre-Birthday dream and decided to go and buy a lottery ticket. I won $100 in a scratch-off, which I guess was the fate's big fat joke (I always joke to my son that I'd probably have to work until I die, as I started working in the US late in life and will never manage to secure my own retirement).

I did take that Monday off, not just for the Birthday Blues but also because my stomach acted out in the morning and I had a really bad cough. I think my body was just too tired. I am teaching five courses this semester (the normal load is four), all of them are unique, which means a lot of prep and grading, and one of them is completely new to me. I honestly don't know how I will survive this semester as I seem to be perpetually busy and trying to catch up with the run-away train of my teaching, service and research responsibilities. And I'm still catching up with that lost Monday in some of my classes.

It took me more than a whole week to finish this story, too. I do feel much better now, if you are wondering. Keeping busy is the best remedy from all Birthday Blues. But I still don't like February, with the 4th year of Putin's war in Ukraine coming up on Feb. 24. It used to be a short, hopeful and promising month for me, and now it's nothing but a misery drag. I can't wait for it to end and the spring to come.