My birthday is July 21st, this coming Monday. I will be (insert lots of numerals here) years old. I have always loved birthdays, especially my own. Remember when you're a kid and your birthday is the greatest day of the year. Well, that, Christmas/Chanukkah or the day that your camp takes a trip to Six Flags.
As you get older, the magic of a birthday isn't the same. You start to mature and realize that celebrating your birthday might make you seem like a douche. Hell, I still love my birthday but it really is a douchey thing to send an e-vite telling your friends to meet at a bar that you would never go to if it wasn't your bday and have them buy you drinks. Last year, I went to a bar that I have only been to once... five years ago on my birthday.
I totally understand how a birthday isn't a big deal anymore. As a child, it's one of the only things you have to look forward to every year. As you get older, there are lots of exciting things to look forward to - pay day, vacations, quality time with the girlfriend and dogs, the new Woody Allen movie - all the great things in life.
As you grow up, a birthday is just "another day." When I was younger, a couple friends of mine and I wrote a terrible screenplay about a man who is depressed about his upcoming birthday and decides to live the day like he's a kid again. He leaves work, plays miniature golf, drives a corvette, orders the biggest sundae you've ever seen at a fancy restaurant and finally asks the girl out that he's been pining for his whole adult life. There's also scenes where he reconnects with his brother, has weird flashbacks about the shoes his father used to wear and has a come to Jesus moment while on a golf course with Robert Loggia.
The point of that movie was supposed to have you look at your birthday in the same way you did as a kid. Take advantage of the one day a year that is solely for you. There is no other day where that happens. Your birthday is you and you alone. You have to share Christmas/Chanukkah, Valentine's Day, Fathers Day/Mothers Day, Secretaries Day, New Years, Halloween, Thanksgiving, MLK day, Simchat Torah, 4th of July, Boxing Day, The Super Bowl, The Oscars, Labor Day, Memorial Day and the day the new Iphone comes out.
I can't do something big for my birthday every year, I know this. This year, I'm going to take it easy - make some dinner at home with my lady, open a nice bottle of wine that we labeled 07-21-14, watch a movie, cuddle on the couch with the dogs, and listen to my girlfriend fake snore when I attempt to make out with her.
Taking it easy on my bday might be a sign of things to come. Maybe I'm maturing and realizing that I don't need to go all out every July 21st? Maybe I'm just done with the hassle of planning and executing the "great day of birth?" Maybe I'm like Danny Glover in the Lethal Weapon franchise and am "getting too old for this shit?" Maybe, nowadays, the most fun thing I can do is be with my girlfriends and the dogs watching movies instead of bumping elbows with strangers in a crowded bar? Maybe it's because I need to rest my old bones for the huge Las Vegas party I'm already starting to plan for next year's birthday? Yeah, that's it.
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