Birthdays.
That annual, big, shiny beacon that is consistently the same day every year flashing brightly indicating the passing of another year and yet it always seems to creep up on us.
That day where you eat the cake, get the phone calls, open the gifts, toast with family and friends and inevitably… turn a year older.
Birthdays are a sure sign that time is passing and for the last few years they have caused me to get deep, nostalgic and reflective.
What did I accomplish this year? Where am I going? What do I want to do next? What do I need to work on?
But I wasn’t always that way.
Heck, I used to proudly wear a pin that said ‘birthday girl’ on it just so everyone would know and I would party for a week, see all the people, do all the toasts and dance like I had a whole year worth of dancing to get out on the dance floor.
Birthdays were always a big deal.
When it’s your special day do you notice how many people will say to you… “hope your birthday is so amazing” or ‘Hope you get so spoiled cause you deserve it.”
I know I’m guilty of this but it’s basically implying that your birthday is always supposed to be some grand event with fireworks shooting out of cannons, balloon arches, fancy cakes, big parties, nights out with overindulgence and memories that you can reflect on all year long until your birthday comes up again the following year and you get to do that big, epic, week -long celebration… all over again.
Urrrggghhh… sounds exhausting now, doesn’t it? Or maybe it’s just me.
I don’t know.
I kind of look at birthdays two ways.
First, hot damn how lucky am I to have lived another year? To have had another trip around the sun. To have made memories, hugged the people I love, seen new things, enjoyed new experiences… lived life… plain and simple.
That is definitely cause for celebration and yes for that reason birthdays should be a big damn deal because honestly so many have their lives cut short. They don’t make it to the year you are sitting at right now… so yes, every single year and birthday should be cause for celebration.
But then there is my second thought. Why do I need to make it such a big deal. Like most things that we build up in our minds they always seem to be a letdown… like New Year’s Eve in my 20s. Shit we would plan that for months. What dress we would wear, where we would go, what hotel we would stay in, what cute boys we hoped to meet … and then waaa waaa someone would drink too much and have to go to bed early, someone would break up with their boyfriend or the bar would be ‘lame’ and we would head to the hotel and make our own party.
Don’t get me wrong… it was always fun, but I think what we had built up in our mind was far more than the night would ever live up to.
Expectations were high.
What we thought it would be was far more than it was, but had we just gone with the flow and let in unfold… that is where the magic usually happened.
The unplanned nights, the days where you would make a last- minute plan or a friend would show un unexpectedly…those were always the best times.
They just happened.
Naturally.
And in lots of ways they are the memories I hold most dear.
Growing up my mom always made my birthday a big deal.
I was a shy kid so I didn’t love the attention but I loved the detail my mom put in and the way she would make me feel.
Loved.
Blowing out those candles I always felt special.
This year I celebrated a big birthday.
45. Gulp!
That’s like four and a half decades on earth and probably past the half way point of my life as if I can make it to 90 then heck what a great life I’ve led.
Blowing out my candles this year, or actually letting the sparklers burn down because with Covid we can no longer blow all over our cake, which I admit I never thought of, but yes, when those sparklers burned down this year I still felt special.
I think that’s why I’ve started to kind of make birthdays more about me.
Just simple and reflective and being remembered and thought of means so much.
My daughter was very sad that I wasn’t spending my 45th birthday at a trampoline park and she didn’t understand why going for brunch with my husband, having cake with my parents and watching my girls play soccer that night made me happy.
She didn’t think it was enough.
But it was.
Because I live my life every day.
I do cool things all of the time.
I dress up and wear lipstick just because.
I take my kids to the trampoline park on a random Tuesday and I buy a pass so I can jump too.
I pitch our tent outside and have sleep outs with the kids.
I pick up friends and take them to random places and discover new things.
I love life every day.
Because I can.
And you can too.
We shouldn’t wait until that one day a year to let our hair down and feel the need to celebrate…
Cliche I know, but every day really is a gift.
I hate the hashtag #YOLO as in you only live once.
Shit… you only die once… you live every damn day.
I loved when I heard that somewhere and how true is that?
So, let’s all embrace the new hashtag #YODO cause that’s the way we should all be living.
We don’t really ever know if next year’s birthday will come. If the same people will be around when we blow out the candles or if we ourselves will be able to celebrate.
So.. eat the damn cake, wear the lipstick to wash dishes, plan a party for nothing, show up at a friend’s house with a bottle of wine and stay to drink it with them…
That really is where the magic happens so join me in this back half of my life with the hashtag #YODO.
Life is short… we’ve got this!
@half_full_most_days