Thirty-Three Not Out
ALISHA SULLIVAN
Iam a birthday person.
When mine comes around, I make it everyone’s problem, and I’m lucky because I happen to be born in that two-minute period where the tennis season ends.
(It’s actually about four weeks if you’re playing the last and first tournaments of any given season.) So making it everyone’s problem is easy.
There are no excuses for not making me the centre of attention.
Maybe it’s the middle child in me. I didn’t get enough attention, so I demanded that one day be all about me (let it be known that I’m being hyperbolic).
Wyatt’s birthday literally doesn’t exist three years out of four, so I get why he’s not a birthday person. He’s never settled on which date he wants to celebrate, and then we end up on March 4th, and he’s a year older.
Naomi falls somewhere in the middle.
She’s a summer child. Which means her birthday falls in the thick of the season. Weirdly, she always seems to end up having a match scheduled (except for last year when she was given the all-clear to bear weight on her ankle), and so most of her day is taken up by that.
This year, she got lucky and was first on court, which meant she was done by early afternoon.
She doesn’t want bells and whistles. She just wants a quiet acknowledgement that the day is about to be different.
Which means cake. A deliciously fancy cake.
Naomi and I also came home to giant balloons (and both find the mere idea of two six-foot-four men trying to wrangle them into a car hysterical) and a bunch of party streamers.
Wyatt got to flex his barbecue skills, and I made four different potato dishes at my sister’s request.
We played games, and there is nothing like two of the greatest female athletes competing against you. They took no prisoners.
It was almost a little terrifying. And also, if either of them ever dares to say they aren’t competitive off court, then I will remind them of the night of Naomi’s thirty-third birthday to prove they are liars.
It was a good day. A fun day. It was the kind of day you want when you have to work on your birthday.
Then the next day, she went back to the courts a year older, and the day after that, she channelled that competitive energy that made her and Lois so formidable as a pair into playing against her and won.
We’re (like I had anything to do with it) leaving Montreal with another trophy and the quickest of all turnarounds into Cincinnati.
And there is also an eye on the horizon because the two greatest female athletes to play the game might be unleashing their competitive edge on New York…
Until next time, from the skies.