Pen-Elayne on the Web

Time, Time, Time, See What's Become Of Me

In another one of those odd coincidences that seems to crop up way too frequently in the Blogosphere, both Peter David's and Al Roker's journals (see left bar) talk about birthdays and aging today. Peter, whose birthday was yesterday, mentions how he doesn't really care to commemorate the day. "I don't make a big deal of it. Actually, I generally do my best to ignore it. All I do is reflect on people who should be celebrating birthdays, but aren't around to do so, and then I wonder why I'm here and they're gone, and then I just get even more depressed." Roker quotes a George Carlin routine about aging and how people view birthdays, including: If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about aging that you think in fractions. "How old are you?" "I'm four and a half!" You're never thirty-six and a half. You're four and a half, going on five!

And again I'm thinking, is it just me then? I think birthdays are keen. I think they deserve to be celebrated. It's a great time for counting blessings and taking stock. I'm still here, I'm still learning, I'm still experiencing new things all the time! Woo-hoo, I'm starting another year of my life, this is great!

And I still note my half-birthday. Don't celebrate it or anything, just make a mental note every June 2, "hey, I'm whatever-and-a-half years old today, how about that."

I think somewhere in my mind I'll always be 23, but going-on-45-this-December-2 is still a really cool thing to me. Much cooler, in fact, than when I was a kid and my birthday always seemed to fall either right after Thanksgiving (which usually meant any celebration was actually a family gathering for Thanksgiving, and I was the afterthought) or smack in the middle of Chanukah (which usually meant only one combined gift) or both. (Both my former and current husbands have December birthdays as well, and have told me similar things happened to them as kids, with the birthday being so relatively close to Christmas.) And I've seen how much joy an adult birthday celebration can bring, as I helped arrange a party for Hilda Terry's 88th this past June. So gimme more, I says! Give me lots and lots of birthdays! I mean, consider the alternative! Yay, I'll be celebrating again soon!