Today I turn 33 and although nothing has physically changed in the past 24 hours besides my official age, I still always find myself changing mentally when every new birthday presents itself. Just like New Years, birthdays are a jump off point for a new lifestyle and an end to some bad habits. It is always interesting to see who will wish you happy birthday and if you are bold enough to mention it out loud, most people will automatically wish you a happy birthday. Everyone loves a holiday and what more personal a holiday than the anniversary of one’s birth, so I look forward to other people’s birthday’s as much as my own because it’s a justified excuse to party.
I think it’s also interesting that with birthdays the format remains much the same your entire life. Whether you are 2 or 82, you are going to get a cake, people are going to wrap gifts and at either extreme of the age spectrum, you may need assistance blowing the candles out and unwrapping the gifts. Of course, some things do get left behind when we grow up as I have yet to see a clown performing at an adults birthday party, as I think this would generate more fear than excitement in most of us. Plus I have found that drinking heavily and clowns often times don’t mix and that is all I will speak on that particular subject. So the partying changes a bit over the years in addition to the gifts. Just like with Christmas, as young kids it was customary to get a lot of toys, but in retrospect we realize that most kids toys aren’t as expensive as the toys we come to love in our adolescence and although as a teenager you may get less gifts for your birthday, its usually a given that they are anything but cheap.
As an adult now, the gifts are not important to me as with all of my friends I like to stay within a certain price range so we don’t all as a group go broke trying to wish our friends a happy birthday. The old saying, “It’s the thought that counts” goes along way with me as I have given many gag gifts with much success. There are times when you can use the most personal of holidays to wish someone a most personal wish and give them a gift that really shows that you’ve been paying attention to them as we all have wishes and desires that we speak out loud with no intention of anyone granting them to us. Sometimes to give is to truly receive for the priceless reaction of someone surprised and happy is indeed quite an intoxicating feeling and the main reason parents go into debt during Christmas so they can watch their kids in utter heaven ripping apart package after package.
Even if you take all the people out of the equation on your birthday you still have yourself and the fact that you’ve made it yet another year. It’s a time of reflection, a time to evaluate if the path you’ve taken has led you to success or led you astray. If we didn’t have holidays and birthdays to punctuate our life in regular intervals, how odd would the passage of time seem for us? I have found that the older I get, the more repetitive life becomes and time definitely tends to fly when there aren’t a ton of new experiences to really stick out in the film reel that is your life. That is part of the essence of the birthday as well, you can’t stop them, you can only choose not to celebrate them. We can’t deny the years that we’ve existed as inevitably we’ve left a footprint on this world.
I look forward to seeing my friends tonight and people buying me free drinks. I look forward to people singing out of key to the tune of “Happy Birthday” and I look forward to eating a special birthday dinner of Empanadas, blacks beans and rice and Jell-O cake (all at my request of course). My life is sometimes heaven, my life is sometimes hell, but most of the time, it’s nestled in the place in between I call earth and reality. A birthday is something to be excited about or dreaded depending on your perspective, but in a world that doesn’t always cater to the individual, any time we can take to steal the spot light without consequence, we should embrace whole heartedly. If you’re young, you have a lot to look forward to, if you’re old, you’ve made it far you cranky bastard, either way, just celebrate. So happy birthday to me, happy birthday to you, and happy birthday to any one decent who deserves it: just remember, one man’s party is another man’s good time so no matter what side you are on, there is going to be fun.
I think it’s also interesting that with birthdays the format remains much the same your entire life. Whether you are 2 or 82, you are going to get a cake, people are going to wrap gifts and at either extreme of the age spectrum, you may need assistance blowing the candles out and unwrapping the gifts. Of course, some things do get left behind when we grow up as I have yet to see a clown performing at an adults birthday party, as I think this would generate more fear than excitement in most of us. Plus I have found that drinking heavily and clowns often times don’t mix and that is all I will speak on that particular subject. So the partying changes a bit over the years in addition to the gifts. Just like with Christmas, as young kids it was customary to get a lot of toys, but in retrospect we realize that most kids toys aren’t as expensive as the toys we come to love in our adolescence and although as a teenager you may get less gifts for your birthday, its usually a given that they are anything but cheap.
As an adult now, the gifts are not important to me as with all of my friends I like to stay within a certain price range so we don’t all as a group go broke trying to wish our friends a happy birthday. The old saying, “It’s the thought that counts” goes along way with me as I have given many gag gifts with much success. There are times when you can use the most personal of holidays to wish someone a most personal wish and give them a gift that really shows that you’ve been paying attention to them as we all have wishes and desires that we speak out loud with no intention of anyone granting them to us. Sometimes to give is to truly receive for the priceless reaction of someone surprised and happy is indeed quite an intoxicating feeling and the main reason parents go into debt during Christmas so they can watch their kids in utter heaven ripping apart package after package.
Even if you take all the people out of the equation on your birthday you still have yourself and the fact that you’ve made it yet another year. It’s a time of reflection, a time to evaluate if the path you’ve taken has led you to success or led you astray. If we didn’t have holidays and birthdays to punctuate our life in regular intervals, how odd would the passage of time seem for us? I have found that the older I get, the more repetitive life becomes and time definitely tends to fly when there aren’t a ton of new experiences to really stick out in the film reel that is your life. That is part of the essence of the birthday as well, you can’t stop them, you can only choose not to celebrate them. We can’t deny the years that we’ve existed as inevitably we’ve left a footprint on this world.
I look forward to seeing my friends tonight and people buying me free drinks. I look forward to people singing out of key to the tune of “Happy Birthday” and I look forward to eating a special birthday dinner of Empanadas, blacks beans and rice and Jell-O cake (all at my request of course). My life is sometimes heaven, my life is sometimes hell, but most of the time, it’s nestled in the place in between I call earth and reality. A birthday is something to be excited about or dreaded depending on your perspective, but in a world that doesn’t always cater to the individual, any time we can take to steal the spot light without consequence, we should embrace whole heartedly. If you’re young, you have a lot to look forward to, if you’re old, you’ve made it far you cranky bastard, either way, just celebrate. So happy birthday to me, happy birthday to you, and happy birthday to any one decent who deserves it: just remember, one man’s party is another man’s good time so no matter what side you are on, there is going to be fun.
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