It comes along one day every year, without fail, seemingly oblivious to how it will affect me. The recurrence of my genital warts Today is my birthday, well technically speaking this date thirty-one years ago was my birthday, so it is the anniversary of my birthday. The 31st one of them (in case you are really slow).
Lots of people seem to enjoy much fanfare on the anniversary of their birth, I am not one of them. My idea of the perfect birthday is basically acknowledgement of it by those close to me and possibly a gift from the wife, though the gift from the wife is generally something useful (shoes this year, as my old ones leave a toe or two hanging out currently). Perhaps if I had a very wealthy family that was prone to giving extravagant gifts I would feel differently? I somehow doubt it, though if someone were to gift me a vacation home in France I certainly wouldn’t turn it down (I would likely never see it due to the fear of flying and all, still it would be a nice gesture).
The real thing that I am reflecting on is why people celebrate birthdays at all. When you think about it logically it is basically just a countdown to your death. Woo-hoo! Only x more years to go! Isn’t that sort of like celebrating the anniversary of the day that the doctor told you that you only had three more years to live? Good times.
Maybe I am looking at it from the wrong perspective. I guess this means that now I only have to work for 34 more years until I can retire! Of course in the coming 34 years the retirement age will get bumped up a couple of times making it so that you have to be 70 or so before you can get Social Security benefits, so I am not even really into celebrating that. Not to mention that I smoke way too much to envision being alive in 34 years, let alone 39+.
The person who really should be celebrating the day is my mom, who was in labor for 23 hours, while walking to and from school in snow three feet deep, uphill both ways. Not only that but her youngest son has made it 31 full years without ever once wearing pantyhose over his head (in this context), standing at the top of a clock tower, with an assault rifle, and shooting innocent people. A claim she might not be able to make at this time next year. Congratulations Mom! Here’s to hoping they finally let me buy an assault rifle before my next birthday!