… the countdown to my birthday begins today.
As I sang the above as a little rhyme to my kids this morning, one of them innocently and excitedly blurted my coming age, too.
Age is so important when you’re young. Reaching that next age, and the next…well, that’s what it’s all about when you’re coming up in the world.
Oh, and the party and wish lists, of course, for which the plans and ideas start being floated about thirty days after their last birthday. I’ll just listen without comment or commitment for several months until we get within, say, three months of said child’s birthday (usually it’s just the girls). Then I announce that the real birthday planning may begin in earnest about one month before their big day. It helps keep their excitement confined to a manageable period of time.
Me, being all grown-up like I am, I try to keep within the same ‘thirty day out’ guideline. But once we hit the first of May, all bets are off and let the games begin.
My date’s the 9th.
So I said to whichever-daughter-it-was who cheerfully announced the age I would become, come the 9th: “I’m celebrating the mood, not the age. I don’t care about the age any more.”
I’m all about the birthday fun and attention, and since it does come attached to a number, I face up to it, I do. But it’s not like they have to tell all their friends.
Do they?
If it comes up, I say, in conversation, fine. It’s okay, I’m not ashamed. But, kids, I like a little mystery about myself, so…you know? Be discreet?
Do you think people aged 13, 11 and 7 can understand the concept of discreet?
Oh well. It is what it is (a phrase I’m quickly tiring of in our language but I’m a lazy writer today), and if someone (and many people do!) discovers my chronological age, so be it.
Chronological age…only someone older would even think to use that one when describing their age. As in, age is only a number. (All the little disclaimers we use when we start becoming a bit dismayed by the passage of time.)
Yea, right. But it’s my number. Which is a bit of a startling thought.
Well, never mind all that. I am still counting down to my birthday because, like my mother before me, it’s a day for celebration and presents and fun! And if I don’t get this party started, no one will.
…i’m 47 and you can bet i want my birthday to be noticed too! i hate that when people get a certain age, and i’m not sure what that age is, they don’t want to celebrate their birthdays anymore…i think it beats the alternative and heck…who doesn’t want to have a fun party no matter what the reason, right?! anyway, keep counting down girl…i’m with you! xo, mickey
Age. What is age anyway? Does anyone really know what time it is? Based not upon the moment of conception, but upon the Earth’s rotation and revolution, calendars are circled, stamped and marked . . . the month, the day, the exact moment we breathed our first breath and kicked our first kick, when body and soul entered the real world, the real world. Recorded at birth, our identification, who we are, our names and eye colors and fingerprints and gender, so we are not mistaken. We are unique and special and this is our one shot at life, the beginning of our life . . . and it is recorded, and so is every birthday, and by the way, where the heck were we before we were born anyway? Birthdays are good for remembering yesterdays and thinking about tomorrows. It is a good time to think about the happy times and the not so happy times that have not only molded and shaped our lives, but also defined who we are and where we have been. We reflect upon who we are, who we know, who we do not know, or where we want to go, and who is important and who isn’t, and what is important and what isn’t, and what went wrong and what went right and why? Birthdays are wonderful for remembering that we were born, that we exist, that we are alive, but also to contemplate our existence in this world . . . it is a time to wonder and judge and identify with what is real and not so real and with what isn’t and never will be. It is a time to stop. To stop. Can we ever really stop? It is a time to try and stop so we can think about everything . . . children and parents and growing old and growing up and to think about who we were back then, and who we want to be out there . . . birthdays are days to yell and scream and shout because today I am alive and next year I might not be, or someone else might not be, or the world might be different or changed or unfamilar or altered or unrecogniable in some small or large way because change happens, and because nothing ever stays the same, not me, not you, not them or us; they always are; people and places and situations and circumstances; nothing stays the same, which is why bithdays matter if only for a moment to reflect on who we were, who we are and who we want to become, if only for a moment in time, on this day, my day, a birthday. Celebrate. Celebrate your life.