Another Birthday.

Birthdays.  I look at this from the perspective of growing up in the USA from the age of about 11, for what I think of as the typical mainstream person, as I experienced them while growing up and as I think my kids experienced them growing up into the fine young adults they are now.  In your early days, they are probably fun, with the traditional party, presents and possible trip to one of any number of places that can make it easier on the parents such as McDonalds, or for a bit more fun Chukee Cheese.  I remember thinking how cool my birthdays were in the early years, in part because it meant I was older and could do more.  More freedom, more decisions.  Since my family probably was a defining member of the term "lower middle class" in terms of the amount of income we had, my sister's and my parties tended to be very low cost get-togethers and we knew better than to ask for expensive gifts, though of course we wanted to have more.  I think that for the middle class American kid, if some friends do not show up, or your most desired present does not end up in your hands by the end of the day, a disappointment is felt, but overall the day is fun and a good time is had by most.  For the most part, birthdays are fun but certainly not perfect.  To much want, to little get.  Later on birthdays become a bit quieter, since school or work will not take time out to celebrate and friends will not be dropping off that hot car or other top list present you were wanting, and while jumping around in the ball maze would still be fun they do not make them in adult size and that sad sense of needing to be cool would stop a lot of people from hitting the maze anyway.  Seeing Sheldon and Leonard in the ball maze in The Big Bang Theory was a great moment in TV in part because they put aside the typical adult aversion to not being cool.  And so it goes.  At some point your outlook on birthdays starts to shift, with your life view, and you stop wishing you could be just a little older.  This is probably about the time when you have left your parent's house, and you start to realize that they were right.  All is not wonderful just because you are an adult, since now you start taking on responsibilities.  No more recess.  No more excuses for not getting your schoolwork done, etc etc etc.  You realize that your parents had to juggle a lot when you were younger, what with work, keeping the home going, your crisis of the day.  And probably, at the edge of your inner being, you start to realize that a special day marking the passage of time is, in fact, marking the passage of your life.  You are no longer able to hide the fact from yourself that you are not immortal. 

The circle of life continues, and you keep moving with it.  Once you have your own family and time starts to speed up, it is for you to plan the birthday celebrations, just as it is for you to deal with the constant grind of life, and the little lives you have helped create.  Unless you can afford to throw a huge party, the celebrations with family and friends for your own birthdays tend to be geared towards appreciating those who are in your life.  And at some time you stop expecting the huge present, or perhaps even wishing for it.  That speeding up of time is of course subjective, or is it?  What if time exists for each measuring device able to feel it?  Perhaps a great physicist will take that up some day.  I wonder how many actually feel time speeding up as they get older?  A non-scientific experiment over several years with several dozen participants reveals that no one in the slug cars that I have been riding to and from work in for a long time now, or some friends at work, has ever not agreed with the premise that it seems that time is speeding up, though I have only broached the subject with people about my age this at least gives comfort that the phenomenon.  So, as time speeds up, birthdays seem to crowd together.  And time that others choose to spend with you becomes more precious.  A gathering of friends a few years ago, at "Zum Rheingarten", one of the best restaurants in this area, ranks as one of the best birthdays I have had for a long time. 

So I started writing this post a day or so after my latest birthday, and finish it now two months later.  Sorry, there is nothing here but my perspective, and this nugget of advice:  When you are young, and think that time drags on, and that each birthday is one of an endless string, think about what I have written here, and cherish those birthdays, and the time, that is yours.