Happy Birthday To Me...Again

So today is my birthday. Again. Will it ever end?

I don’t mean life, I mean celebrating birthdays.

Yes, I’m happy to be here at age 52, already living 12 years longer than my little brother and 13 years longer than my father. Yes, I’m grateful to wake up to see another day, and thankful to have survived challenges that threatened to take me down over the years, both physically and emotionally.
But that still doesn’t make me a birthday person.

We all know birthday people. They are absolutely giddy about the pending date, circling it on their own calendars with stars and arrows, reminding everyone they come into contact with that it is on the way- sometimes months before the actual date. They rip out ads with great gift ideas for themselves, and remind you of their favorite flowers and restaurants. If it’s a significant birthday, they ask if you need access to their address book or sometimes they forgo the middle person altogether and plan their own birthday bash, which is just as well as they can be easily disappointed if something is not the way they imagined it should be on their “special day”.

And while it’s fine and dandy for them to celebrate their birthday as they choose, its not for me and never has been.

And I have the photo to prove it.

In my lone birthday photo, circa about 8 years old, I am seated at the table with my birthday cake duly placed in front of me. My crown is askew as if it has been forced onto my head against my will, my chubby little hand reaching up as if to straighten it or rip it off. I am busting out of my pink party dress, which appears to be two sizes too small for me, and I am sporting a homemade pixie hair cut, complete with crooked bangs, making me look a little like a miniature cross dresser. My eyes are sad, swollen and soggy, indicating the start or end of some kind of crying fit, as they focus on the burning confection in front of me screaming silently “I am not worthy- make it go away”.

Not much has changed since then.

But that doesn’t mean other people have stopped trying to make me celebrate, either.

Today I came into work, only to find a spoon wrapped in a napkin with twirly ribbon around it and a note hanging off of it that said Clue #2. I was instantly inflamed. ‘Are you freakin’ kidding me…a birthday scavenger hunt?!’ I thought, as I whipped out an email to the perpetrator- easily identified by her handwriting and well-known as a ‘birthday person’.

“I don't know how to break this to you, because I know you like celebrating your birthday and would love a treasure hunt on your day. But I just found a spoon that says its number 2, and I'm not going to look for number one or number three. Its just not my thing.”

I then marched over and threatened to use plastic spoon #2 as a blunt weapon if my friend did not tell me immediately where the rest of the clues were. After explaining that she had stayed up until midnight concocting this birthday plan, and admitting that yes, she should have known that I would hate it, she spilled the beans and led me to the prize- a sample size ice cream container of my favorite flavor- SCORE!

Alls well that ends well, as I treated myself to ice cream for breakfast on my birthday, thankful for friends that know me so well, and love me anyways.