My birthday was this week on Wednesday, and my little sister turned 5 last week. Seeing how we celebrated her birthday versus how my birthday was celebrated really made me think about how birthdays change as a person gets older. I mean the way we celebrate my sister’s 5th and my 17th birthday is obviously gonna be different, but it was an interesting realization
My sister talked about her birthday for weeks before it actually happened. She was beyond excited about it. The night before my sister’s birthday, my mom went out to the store and bought her a balloon and tied it around a bunch of my sister’s favorite cookies. I wasn’t home for most of the day (between school and work), but I know she got a bunch more balloons as well as a cake. My parents also made her favorite food and watched Frozen 2 with her. They didn’t do anything super big, but she had a great time and was telling me all about it the next day.
Why do we make such a big deal out of a person’s birthday when they’re young, but as they get older it’s just another day? Some adults don’t even mention their birthday anymore. I feel if we’re gonna make a big deal out of it for kids, why can’t people of all ages experience the joy I saw in my sister? Because, to be honest, I feel like a lot of us could use some of that innocent excitement right now.
When I was little, each passing birthday was one more step toward being an adult, and the prospects of driving and having more money than I could fit in a piggy bank were super enticing to five-year-old me. I knew that every year, I got closer to being a grown-up, which I viewed as the true beginning of life, and that knowledge always got me excited for my birthday weeks in advance. That, and my mom always threw the best birthday parties when I was younger. But now that I can drive and I do have slightly more money than I can fit into a piggy bank, the whole experience is a little underwhelming. Now, I look at my birthday as just that: an anniversary of my existence. It kind of just happens, like a congratulation from your family for living another year. And as I get older, I sometimes long to go back to the days where homework took 30 minutes on a really bad night and I always had some free time after school. Basically, the magic of the birthday is diminished, because now I am that age that I always wanted to be, and there's really no particular age to look forward to (except retirement I guess).
ReplyDeleteMy dad's birthday is on St. Patrick's Day, but we celebrated today because he has work on the actual day and today's Sunday so for some reason we don't have to abide to our Lenten "sacrifices". We went bowling, ate chocolate cake and now we're watching Zombieland 2. We pretty much have done the same things on his birthday each year. As my own birthday approaches, I don't usually think of my own birthday as the day itself but actually becoming one year closer to driving/voting/becoming an alcoholic/etc. When you are younger, the years between different stages of life are closer, so birthdays are more monumental. When you get older, you aren't going to think of your birthday as one year closer to being considered a senior citizen or having to take your driving test again, so it might become less important to you.
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