How old were you born?

Lying in bed wondering where I might have caught malaria. Or is it that chicken salad, food poisoning. Or is it intolerance to the stomach pills that I subsequently took? No, this is far worse. Shivering chills, feverish, then hot, hot-hot clammy. Or all the above, together.
Menopause. Naturally. (Pun intended). Goddamn menopause, I thought I had by-passed it. Skipped, moved on, straight to old.
Old. The age that I always felt. Even as a kid. Tired of life’s prewritten choreography already by 9 or 10. Tired even then to make the effort to be a girlie girl. Felt the frivolity triviality futility then, and then, and now.
Born. Several times I had refused to oblige. Then, I can’t help thinking, I somehow slipped right into it. Or out of it, more precisely. Pop. Must have been the exhausting impulse to oblige. Boy Brother pushing behind me, getting fed-up with the waiting. No wonder I have brooded this trickery buggery since. He came out angry-angry but then mellowed out, eased into it. As men can do.