Sunday was my birthday. This is how I celebrate my birthday.
I have an odd relationship with birthdays. I’m sure that as a child I enjoyed the attention and the gifts. For just about as long as I can remember though, I find most of the spectacle awkward and somewhat embarrassing.
I get intensely uncomfortable when people sing Happy Birthday, or ask me what kind of gift I want. When my wife asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, I replied that all I wanted to do was hang out with my friends. Nothing fancy. Nothing elaborate.
I’m aware that at some level, this seems to make everyone believe I’m petulant or ill humored.
Sorry about that. I don’t think it can be helped.
In league with my discomfort over the celebration, is the growing presence of my age. Thirty eight isn’t a significant milestone with regards to aging, and in many respects it’s not all that old. When I think about my age in comparison to the parts of my life that have already transpired, it starts to blow my mind a little bit.
It’s been ten years since I started dating my wife. It’s been twenty years since I graduated from high school and joined the Army. It’s been thirty years since I first shot a gun. It’s one thing to think of a childhood location and think, “I haven’t been to that place in twenty years or more.” It’s another thing to find myself in a rarely visited part of Vegas and think, “I haven’t been to this part of town in 15 years” and reflect that when last I visited, I was an adult.
Now I have a son, and I keep thinking of my the years in my life in relationship to my father and his life. My father was younger than I am now when I was born, but he always seemed like an old man to me. I don’t feel old, except when I try to sit on the floor, but I realize now that I will always be old in the eyes of my son.
