Birthday. An anniversary of birth. The celebration of the human entrance into this world and beginning of existence as we know it.
It is a happy time, and yet I always find it to be a subtle reminder to update my last will and testament. This year, my 24th to be exact, my brother and my mom found it a little unnatural that I was so motivated to launch a list of names to whom I would distribute my estate in the event of my departure from my life. And at 24, there is sadly not much of an established estate to give if my passing were to come so soon. But that's the thing about birthdays...they always come in a different form.
There are the glorious childhood birthdays. The birthdays that are filled with all play and no work. The birthdays that your parents slaved over to create that few hours of pure joy and pool parties. Those birthdays that cake and ice cream filled young tummies, and paper plates and plastic cups were the cause for the takeover of trashcans. Those were the [birth]days!
Then there are the worrisome birthdays. The birthdays for which you still had to do no work, but you might as well have because you spent just as much energy worrying about who shows up, how many people will actually come, and when they are going to get there. Some may call it the teenage birthdays.
After that, you move into the young adult birthdays...that bittersweet age where you feel you are old enough to entertain an army, but young enough to celebrate with the rising of the coming sun. These are the most exhausting of birthdays. Money that isn't had is spent on unnecessary accessories and an excess amount of cheap champagne. As for the morning after, which is more than likely slept through, the infamous breakfast of champion partiers...grease with a side of edibles, which, mind you, can only be aptly ingested while wearing a pair of dark sunglasses and pajama pants.
But this birthday...a ripe age of 24; that age when things have fallen out of place just so better things could fall together. This was a birthday to love. I started with the excitement of a childhood birthday because, I mean come on, it's a birthday! But then once I realized all of my closest friends had their own lives and may not be able to join me for the festivities, I moved into the teenage birthday. And once I hadn't heard back from anyone a few days before my birthday, there might as well have been no birthday. However, I remembered reading my horoscope. It informed me not to be discouraged if people couldn't celebrate my birthday with me ON my exact birth date, but to be flexible and allow myself to celebrate when it's right for other people. Maybe the AstrologyZone guru was right, or maybe she realized that my birthday falls on Labor Day Weekend and everyone would be busy boating rather than blowing out candles with me. Either way, it worked. Dinner and drinks on the patio of Blackbird with my Norman gal pals and a splendidly close boyfriend to one of them filled my Friday night, and bowling with my family set my Saturday. Simple yet superbly more than I could ask for.
And I got to finish that will and testament, and a few special funeral arrangements. See you in the hereafter, suckers! But hopefully, sooner than that!
