Today I am 51 years old. It's interesting how as one gets older, one realizes that there is nothing magical about birthdays. I don't mean that in a mean spirited or bitter way. I mean when I was a kid, it felt like birthdays stood apart from other days. It seemed like you really did feel different on your birthday. It actually seemed that being seven felt different from being six.
But 51 doesn't feel different from 50. When I went to bed last night, I lay there thinking about this. I knew when I woke up in a few hours it would be my birthday and I thought about what that really means and what that really feels like. It would be a Monday morning and that would feel different from a Sunday morning. But would I feel different? Would I think of myself differently?
When I woke this morning, I felt that Monday morning feeling of wishing there was another day in the weekend. I had to remind myself that it was my birthday, because it really didn't feel any different from any other Monday morning. I lay there drifting between sleep and wakefulness, in and out of those odd morning dream sequences.
The cat was giving me her usual early morning stare, using her telepathic powers to get me up so she could get a drink of water from the faucet. The dog was still asleep, but he is not a morning creature so there was nothing different there. So, it was a rather ordinary Monday morning that just happened to be the day I celebrate my birthday.
As I contemplated this over my mug of coffee, I had to acknowledge that this was all okay. I remember my first birthday on my own. I had (although I would not have acknowledged this) dreaded waking up alone on my birthday with no-one to wish me Happy Birthday and sing silly birthday songs to me. I am not sure why this bothered me so much but I just wasn't sure I would be able to deal with this. And yet, I woke up, and the day started, and I made my way through that day with birthday wishes from family and friends and celebration, and as I ended that day, I realized I had survived without a significant other by my side. The sun had come up, moved across the sky and set. My birthday was in fact merely a day, on which I acknowledged my age to those around me.
Today has been marked with phone calls, text messages and Face Book posts. A surprise (or maybe shocking) phone call came from my ex mid morning. We have not talked in more than a year, so that was really odd. We live in different cities and we have no reason to be in contact, so this was quite strange. Then of course I have had some of the obligatory calls wishing me a happy birthday and then checking to see if I have found a man, followed with the cautionary tale of "life is short", "you need to get out there - its been long enough"...
It drives me crazy, and yes I get it! It drives me crazy because I know they are probably right. I know for sure that life is often too short. I know that I have now been on my own for a long time, and I know I need to get out more. But honestly, do they have to remind me of all of this today?
Later this evening I will join some friends for dinner. I will be the only single person in this room full of friends, and for the most part I will be fine with that. But at some point during the evening, I will look around and the reality of my situation will hit me, and for one moment I will feel the agony of solitude and be overwhelmed by sadness. But it will only be a moment. I will remind myself that today is Monday and tomorrow will be Tuesday, and my birthday doesn't change that or much else.
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