It’s my youngest son’s 7th birthday today. He usually sleeps in at least a little bit during the summer, but he was up bright and early this morning. And I’m heading out the door for another day of incessantly ringing phones and dealing with the dreaded “people”. It’s funny how the older I get, the less I like dealing with people. Other people, whether they mean to or not, directly or indirectly cause over 99% of the stress in my life. I used to be able to deal with people and empathize with their problems and concerns. These days, I have enough of my own problems, whether real or imagined, that I really don’t want to listen to yours. So, another stress-filled day awaits me, while my boy is going to be enjoying his birthday.
“Happy birthday, buddy,” I tell him as I’m heading out the door, to which he gives me a big hug.
Man, I can remember being excited about birthdays like that. Almost. I do not, however, exactly remember when I realized that each passing year is not something to be celebrated; each passing year represents another year closer to death and another year where all of those goals I set for myself in youth go unrealized. And it’s a spiral, this death/unrealized-goals thing. The closer you get to death, the less time you have to realize your goals, and the faster time seems to pass with each passing birthday. Summers, which used to be a long season of leisure in my youth… a season where time actually seemed to slow down and a time filled with fun and frolic and development of the imagination and dreams of the future… summer, now, is the short season between all of the time-consuming activities that the kids have to be shuttled to and from (school, scouts, soccer, t-ball, youth group, AWANA… and this year the oldest starts confirmation and an after school program at the public library and the youngest wants to do Tae-kwon-doe). All of these activities are right around the corner, which the wife and I could probably be prepared for if we, too, had our entire summers off, which we didn’t. So time just goes faster and faster and those goals become more and more unrealistic and death looms closer and closer… and the spiral accelerates.
One of the main things I wish for my kids is the joy of birthdays. I hope that my sons never reach a point where they see the tornado of life as an out-of-control, stress-filled monstrosity. I hope my sons always find joy in their birthdays because their goals are being met and other people don’t tend to piss them off just by existing. This is a lot to hope for, I know, but it is my hope.
Tonight, my family will go out to eat in celebration of the youngest’s 7th birthday. We will eat Chinese, because sesame chicken is his favorite. We will then go home, light candles on the birthday cupcakes, sing “Happy Birthday”, watch him make a wish and blow out the candles. We will hope he wished for something important, something grand, and we will hope his wish comes true. We will watch him open his presents with certain giddiness. He will enjoy his birthday, and so will we.
Enjoy your birthdays, while you can. If you already can’t… well… you are not alone. I guess we can always try to enjoy the birthdays of someone else 🙂