If Today Is Your Birthday...

Today is not my birthday.  But it could be, if I wanted it to be.  Because I am in the market for a new one.

My birthday was last week, on the day - or one of them, anyway - that scientific research has shown to be the most depressing day of the year.  I think I am in agreement because, honestly, I don't have a great history with birthdays, and this one was no exception.

Since I have been staying with my mother (who is ill) since December 10th, my birthday consisted of accompanying her to see two doctors (discussing her imminent surgeries), sitting in waiting rooms (praying to be spared contagions), having lunch at an iHop (ditto on the contagions there), and going to THREE stores, risking exposure to influenza and noroviruses without having any success in finding a pair of "moto" boots.

My friend, Babs, who - bless her - came to see me with a gift and a cocktail, said it was the shittiest birthday ever.  Sadly, she is wrong.

It is true that my husband and children - when given the opportunity - have provided me with some lovely birthday celebrations.  It is also true that there have been times when those celebrations have been preempted by events so awful it made me wish I were incarcerated in some other solar system.  But those events were not funny and are, therefore, beyond the scope of these writings.  Lord knows, on more than one occasion I have been happily reading a witty and amusing work, only to have the author come out of nowhere and ambush me with some bit of graphic pathos, a betrayal and a painful experience that I have no intention of inflicting on anyone else.

I understand the reasons why January birthdays are no fun.  Everyone is burned out from the holidays, which go on far too long these days, and everyone is, therefore, tired of smiling.  Everyone is also too poor to gladly purchase gifts (one's chances of being "re-gifted" are high) and way too fat to want to have anything to do with a birthday cake. 

As a child, I was not on the social "A" list on my block.  I speak here without bitterness because, if my memory serves me correctly, there were some very good reasons for this, and I'm not one to hold a grudge.  Well, yeah, actually, I am, but I've also been been blessed with the ability to feel guilty.   Which means I blame no one but myself for some disappointing childhood birthdays.  And which also means that my birthdays - like myself - should be getting better, but as one grows older, it's all in the luck of the draw.  In January, the odds are not good.  One fights the weather, the viruses, and the vague sense of dread that accompanies the winding down of football season.  One takes down holiday decorations, though a just punishment, I think, for putting them up in the first place.  January is cold and dark and gloom, and the meager light of a birthday candle simply cannot dispel it.

Better to just give up and hunker down to wait for the Super Bowl.

January babies should be given the choice to opt out and choose their own birthdays.  At least, once they are old enough to make a responsible decision.  After all, if shopping for a birthday, it's best to have the maturity and experience to understand the critical factors that make for a good one.  The ideal birthday:

1. should never compete with a major holiday.  Especially not with a holiday that involves gifts.  Trust me, you will never, ever come out even at the end of the year.  And it will become one of the things that define you;
2. should be shared by attractive, famous people or people so wonderful that nobody cares if they're attractive or not.  It is important to be very, very careful when choosing birthday-mates, the best choices being very nice dead people or those too old to start dating Lindsay Lohan, whose legacy - I predict - is only going to get worse;
3. falls under a fun astrological sign, which eliminates significant chunks of January, March, July, and September.

I once went through a rather odd stage of my life, my early twenties, living with a group of people who would randomly choose a day out of the year and throw their victim a surprise birthday party on that day.  It could be six months away from the honoree's actual birthday, or three months later, or the following day.  The point was that "surprise birthday party" is an oxymoron, as no party given on one's real birthday could possibly be construed as a surprise, unless one is a complete moron or Donald Trump.

I'm torn between choosing a birthday that fills the holiday gap between Independence Day and Halloween, or one that latches on to a cluster of other birthdays, if only for the convenience.  A late summer birthday means that I could invite lovely people for cocktails under the stars; putting my birthday next to lots of other people's birthdays means sublimating my own identity and willingly sharing some of life's precious moments of limelight.
 

And having a really BIG party,  Which is definitely more my style. 

I have had a week during which - in the interest of saving what little sanity menopause has left to me - I threw out all the food I don't like (Tupperware and all), reluctantly came to grips that very soon I will have to "size-up" in jeans, ecstatically watched the last half hour of an "edited for television" version of Romy And Michele's High School Reunion like it was the greatest movie ever made,  and discovered that I am starting to memorize the lyrics to TV commercial jingles.  Maybe` because I've heard the same ones over and over about a hundred million, zillion fucking times in the last six weeks.  Maybe just to prove I still can.  I am, after all, a year older.  What would I possibly be wanting to celebrate under these circumstances?

Well, looking at it that way, quite a lot, I guess.  For starters, I found those boots the very next day.  On sale.  DEEP sale.  And they're perfect.  Possible proof of an intelligence in the universe with a sense of irony.

Happy Birthday!