On November 4, 2023, I’ll complete my fiftieth trip around the sun. I cannot wait to celebrate this milestone, and I know that I have so much to look forward to. I’m lucky. I was born with a gift: I can see my future.

I arrived in this world in 1973, the youngest of five girls. As soon as the doctor announced, “It’s a girl,” and slapped my bottom, I became a member of an exclusive club. We call ourselves The Moore Girls and after my arrival, we accepted no new members. It was the five of us, Patricia, Katie, Nancy, Julie, and Megan, spanning nineteen years and two generations.

When my parents brought me home, my oldest sister had already graduated high school, while my sister closest in age would celebrate her sixth birthday less than three weeks after my arrival. I like to imagine that my four big sisters gathered around my crib like the fairies in Sleeping Beauty, whispering, “Welcome home, Megan. We are so excited to meet you. To celebrate your arrival, we bestow upon you the gift of sisterhood.” With this blessing and a wave of their magic wands, my sisters granted me not only the gift of belonging, but also the ability to see the future.

As the youngest member of our sisterhood, I did not always appreciate my place in the lineup or have awareness of the magic it offered. As a kid, I hated being referred to as “the baby.” There was always someone to boss me around, tease me, or tell me, “BE QUIET!” My sisters might play dress up with me one day, and on the next tell me to get lost. Yet, I drew upon the gifts of sisterhood without realizing it and by doing so, looked forward to getting older.

By age five, I knew that when I grew up I could listen to cool music like Fleetwood Mac, play an instrument to create my own cool music, or move to a big city and live in an apartment all by myself. By age ten, I knew I could make friends that played sports, be the friend that played sports, or cheer along the sidelines for others playing sports. I could go far away to college or live in another country. I could share space with clever roommates and even live in a purple house at the top of a hill. I learned from my sisters that aging would be accompanied by greater independence and adventure. I wanted that.

As I got older, the mathematical age differences between me and my sisters became less noticeable. I got to spend more time at the big kids’ table, so to speak. I understood my sisters’ joke when they put Moby Dick in the hat for charades, hoping our mom would draw it, which she did, and then stood in front of us and giggled until the timer ran out. When Patricia had a daughter in 1989, I felt the joy of holding that warm, tiny body against my chest as we dozed in a rocking chair. I looked forward to living like my big sisters lived: building my own family, earning enough money to buy a condo, and hosting house parties where people drank wine and ate what I considered fancy food, like hummus or specialty pizzas.

I began to appreciate my place in the sisterhood somewhere around my late twenties. Rather than trying to shove it off, I wore the badge of being “the baby” with honor. Because I was the youngest, I knew what an amazing decade I could have in my thirties. My sisters had shown me that this was the time I would start to figure things out, when I would care less about what other people thought and embrace what I wanted. So I did things like take a four-month cross-country road trip in my Mini Cooper, quit my job and go to law school, and at one point bought the tiniest bikini bottoms I had ever worn (so worth it).

In 2004, The Moore Girls started a tradition. We had never done something with only the five of us, and we decided we should change that:  we would celebrate Patricia’s fiftieth birthday, members-only style. Over a long weekend, the five us traveled from San Diego to Ensenada, Baja California, Mexico. We drank margaritas from heavy glass coupettes, took pictures with Señor Frog, and luxuriated at a spa.

As Katie, Nancy, and Julie reached their fiftieth birthdays, in  2012, 2015, and 2017, we chose different cities and different adventures to mark the occasions. These gatherings included hiking in the snow, listening to live bluegrass music, doing yoga next to a river, getting at-home massages or spending the day at the spa, eating expensive cheese, and, one time, wearing wigs and false eyelashes for a night on the town. I learned not to be afraid of each birthday but to celebrate my life, whatever it looks like.

My sisters have traveled different paths, and because of that, I don’t feel beholden to some specific image of where I should be at any age. At age fifty and older, they have nurtured families, started new careers and businesses, traveled abroad, and made new homes for themselves. As I look forward to celebrating my fiftieth birthday with The Moore Girls, I conjure the image of my sisters gathering around my crib in 1973. I feel the power of their magic and the gift of being the baby. My life remains full of possibilities, whether I’m fifty, sixty-nine, eighty, or anywhere in between or beyond. Because of my big sisters, I get to see my future. And my future looks amazing.

The Moore Girls in Mexico Celebrating Patricia’s 50th Birthday

Megan M. Moore