E’s Birthday

Happy Birthday (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today it is E’s birthday she is now ’39’ years old……well you didn’t think I was going to reveal her real age now did you? Save to say she is younger than I am. Once was that I celebrated my birthday, that is the day I came into this world and not my ‘other’ birthday, the one I mentioned in an earlier post. I don’t celebrate them as I once did. Actually I cannot see the point of it. What is a celebration anyway? Does it mean getting drunk, partying and eating too much? Is it receiving gifts from those who feel the need to give them? What difference does it make or is it just an excuse to do all of these things? I have learned that all these things really are pointless to enjoying my life and my birthday is simply another day. It hasn’t always been the case that people celebrate birthdays, in fact they are not celebrated in many parts of the world. Birthday celebrations along with many other things we as human beings do are perpetuated through tradition and nobody wants to fly in the face of tradition for fear of being considered anti-social or weird, in other words afraid of what others might say or think about us. I could take E out for a nice meal by way of acknowledging her birthday and I might just do that but I do that often anyway. I might buy her gifts but she has most everything she wants and another gift simply adds to the pile she has already. Consumable gifts are a good idea, things that won’t sit in a cupboard for months on end and be forgotten. Birthdays mark another milestone in the journey of life but often we don’t want to be reminded of that especially as we get older. My argument is not what I can buy for E but what I can do for her to let her know she is loved and appreciated all the time and not simply because it is her birthday. I do this to my best ability anyway. She knows this and that is better than any other gift I could give her.

Shirley Anne