Adult Birthdays

I remember there was a time when I looked forward to my birthdays. Birthdays are so cool as a kid. You get cake and presents and everyone makes a big deal out of you turning one year older. All attention is on you. As soon as your birthday is over you look forward to the next one. Now I've had some mixed feelings about my birthday. See as a kid, if you birthday is towards the end of the summer and you look forward to it, you're technically looking forward to the first day of school. Not fun. But nonetheless I did look forward to my birthday. I'd get to go to the amusement park, which was a real treat when I was a kid. As a teenager I still looked forward to my birthday even if I didn't have that same giddy feeling I did when I was in the single digits. As a teenager you have milestones to look forward to. First there's age 13 because that's when you're officially a teenager. Then there's age 16 which is supposedly your sweet 16 although I have had that kind of party. Then there's age 18 when you're finally considered an adult, although you probably still have pretty much the same mentality as a teenager. Age 21 is the really big one, unless you've already found places where you can drink underage but still being 21 gives you way more options.  Bur for me age 19 was a birthday to really look forward to. That was the start of a new and serious relationship and really the first time I had a boy  treat me like a princess. I couldn't wait to see what my boyfriend did. And he didn't disappoint. I still remember the enormous arrangement of flowers he bought for me. Even though I'm not a fan of flowers, I still think of those. The thought behind them was so sweet.Nothing has come close to have the meaning that flowers do. In fact the thought behind everything was sweet. He planned everything so carefully to impress me, his new girlfriend. No birthday has really come close to that one.  Somewhere after that big milestone of turning 21 birthdays just don't feel the same. Even though you no there is no logical reason to celebrate a birthday you still want that feeling you had as a kid. But it's just not there. Maybe it's me or maybe it's everyone as they get older. There's not much to look forward to as your mind begins to fill with thoughts of aging and you realize how fast time goes by. There's no rush to grow up anymore. You're already grown and with the responsibilities of being an adult you don't have the time to savor each moment of the year you're in. But the birthdays themselves have lost their magic. When you're a kid everyone makes a big deal about you on your birthday. But as you get older it's not so much of a big deal. No more surprises unless you're lucky to have someone to plan one for you. If you want to celebrate your birthday you plan it. And there's no excitement in planning your own birthday. And it's even worse when your birthday falls out on a weekday. Nothing dulls a birthday quite like having to go to work.  And celebrating it another day just isn't the same. The magic is on the anniversary of your birth and a bit of that magic disappears when it's celebrated on another day.

So when I have my own kids I vow to make their birthdays as special as I can because there's only a limited number of birthdays that have that magic and excitement attached to them.