My Birthday

Today is my birthday.  I’m not announcing this to get birthday wishes, even though birthday wishes are always on my top ten list of good things.  I’m just always a bit amazed at the people I know, my sons included, who pooh pooh birthdays as they get older.  Do they think that by denying a birthday is denying age.  Not me, I love birthdays, the more the better.  I would celebrate my birthday twice a year if I could.  Birthdays are not about getting older, but getting better.  Getting another chance to do something special.  A chance to make a difference in your life and other lives that you touch.  Birthdays are not just the day to celebrate the day you were born (even though it’s a great excuse for cake)  but a chance to begin a re-birth of sorts. 

Birthdays are like New Year’s Resolutions, they are great way to make changes in ourselves.  Opportunities to grow, to be more, to never stop learning and loving life.  I recently found a ring that says it all.  “Love Life” is inscribed on the outside and on the inside the words “Be Brave”.  I wear it on my left thumb and every time I look at it, I smile.  It reminds me that if the day is not going to way I want, I still love life and every minute in it counts.  I would also add “Be Bold”.   I want to go through each day strong facing every challenge and opportunity with my chin stuck out.

There are so many things I want to do, places to go and people to meet.  There are not enough birthdays out there for me to accomplish all that I want with the years that I have left.  There is no way I going pass up a birthday just because a number changes and gets higher. 

I am not going pass up a birthday for vanity’s sake.  The important milestones in age are old enough to start going to school, getting your driver’s license, getting to vote and old enough to know better.  I don’t think some people ever learn the last part.  I’m sure some would add old enough to drink, but after getting old enough to know better, drinking is for taste and not drinking to get drunk. Besides the longer I’m around the longer I get to really annoy certain people. 

So Happy Birthday to me, it’s going to be great.