You say it's my birthday...

It is! (I had the Beatles song running through my head, & that was the best title I could come up with.) ; )

Birthdays were special when I was a kid. They weren't the elaborate extravaganzas that I see & hear today's kids having -- but I always got to have a party with all of my friends. Months of elaborate planning would go into the details & guest lists -- but at the time & place that I grew up in, birthday parties for my friends & me boiled down to essentially the same ingredients: hot dogs &/or sloppy joes, potato chips & pickles to eat with kool-aid to drink; a confetti angel food cake baked by my mom -- iced with icing sugar frosting, decorated with Smarties & stuffed with money (nickels, dimes & quarters, wrapped in waxed paper) hidden inside; games to play and presents to open in a living room or basement rec room decorated with balloons & crepe paper streamers.

Even after I turned 13 -- too old for a traditional party -- I was allowed to have my best friends over for dinner. For my 18th birthday, my parents drove me, my sister & two of our best friends into the city (in bitterly cold weather), where we had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory & I had my first "legal" bottle of wine (Mateus). (I kept the bottle for years afterwards. My mom found it recently in a box of stuff from my university dorm room. I told her she could throw it out.)

For my 21st birthday, my girlfriend & I went to see "Reds" with Warren Beatty & Diane Keaton, and when I got back to my dorm room, my sister had brought over a cake for my floormates to share (paid for by Mom)(they gave me the Royal Bumps first before digging in). For my 23rd birthday, my sister came to visit me in the city where I was attending grad school. Dh (although not dh then) came for the weekend, & we went for dinner at a nice restaurant & then to see "Arsenic & Old Lace" at the beautifully restored theatre across the street (with the roles of the two dotty old sister-murderers played to perfection by legendary actors John Neville & William Hutt in drag).

Today is my 49th birthday. Not one of the ones that's divisible by 5 (yet!). I went to my dr this morning for a blood pressure check & it was 120/80. I suppose that's as good as it gets these days. ; ) Dh had a card & kisses waiting for me when I woke up, & will take me out for dinner after work to our favourite restaurant. An e-card from my thoughtful SIL (who never forgets) was waiting when I arrived at the office.

My parents & sister will call sometime today, & my mom will send a card. My office is hit & miss when it comes to celebrating birthdays. We have a lot of newer staff, & the one person who might remember, my boss, is away on vacation right now. So I don't expect much fanfare to be coming my way.

Not that I am comfortable being the centre of attention, especially in large groups. I'm not sure I'd want to have a party, maybe not even next year. I would be horrified to be serenaded by a group of waiters with an entire restaurant looking on (dh & I have a pact: I'll never do it to him if he never does it to me).

Still, it's nice to have a little fuss made, to know that someone is happy that you made it here. : ) I guess it's part of growing older, that birthdays aren't quite as special as they used to be. I don't think it's necessarily a function of not having kids -- I'm sure parents are just as thrilled (or not) about their own birthdays as I am. Mixed feelings about the passage of time, the roads not taken.

But I'll bet their kids find it exciting that Mom or Dad is having a birthday (probably more than Mom or Dad do themselves, lol), and they get to relive their own childhood birthday excitement through their children's birthdays & parties.

At any rate, growing older sure beats the alternative. : ) Thanks for the birthday wishes to date!

Previous birthday posts:

My 48th birthday

My 47th birthday