Another year with Terry the Transformed

It's my wife's birthday today. As is always the case on her birthday, she is turning one year older than me.

She was born eight months before I was, so ever since I've known her (nearly 30 years now), she has been the one to "scout out" the next age ahead. She turns a certain number, and after a couple of months I ask her how it is. And invariably her answer is, "About the same as being <INSERT HER PREVIOUS AGE HERE.>"

In other words, just because the calendar turns another year doesn't necessarily mean you yourself are much different.

Of course, she also refuses to acknowledge that I'm younger than she is. When she turned 40, for example, she informed me that I was also 40. Which would have been fine, except that I was 39 at the time and wouldn't turn 40 until much later in the year.

This didn't matter to her. It never matters to her. Whatever age she happens to be, then that's the age I am, too, as far as she's concerned, birth certificates be damned.

This past year has been a momentous one for Terry, and for once it's not because she birthed another child. It was because she lost a significant amount of weight and she feels fantastic.

Everyone always remarks on how different she looks, because that's what happens when you lose weight. But as I've said more than once, I thought she looked beautiful before and I think she looks beautiful now, though I may be a bit biased.

What's different is how much happier she is. Weight loss is one thing, and it's a very important thing from a health standpoint. But it's also only the physical manifestation of something much deeper and more meaningful that happens inside a person.

Over the last year or two, Terry has started trying new things. New foods, new drinks, new experiences. Stuff that wouldn't have occurred to her to try before is suddenly a routine part of her life.

Like beer, for instance. I've always been the beer drinker in our relationship, and even then I probably average one a month, generally consumed when I'm at a party or some other social function. The smell of beer used to make her wretch. Now she drinks the stuff and loves it.

How does this happen? How does something go from vomit-inducing to mm-mm-good just like that? Of all the strange things that have resulted from Terry's Transformation, as I like to call it, the beer thing is the most bizarre.

In the end, what I'm most happy about is that Terry is finally taking time for Terry. As a mom of five (six if you count me), she has spent years thinking about and caring for everybody except Terry. So she's long overdue for a little me-focus. It's better for her and it's better for her family, because it makes her an all-around better person, mother and wife.

So I guess today I'm not celebrating the fact that my wife is yet again older than me – and make no mistake, regardless of what she says, she IS older than me – I'm celebrating the re-emergence of the joyous, exuberant person that has always been there, but who maybe got covered up a little by years of diapers, sippy cups, school projects and sleepless nights.

Happy birthday, hon. And welcome back.