Birthdays

Birthdays were always a big deal when I was growing up. There was the tradition of presents and muffins at breakfast, one with a candle in it, and birthday dinner with cake and ice cream. Dinner was always my choice and for many years I chose KFC (my dad brought it home, we didn't actually eat there).

My mom always planned a great birthday party with all of my friends. I remember a tea party and a Christmas-themed party with Santa Claus, but the one that always sticks out is my fifth birthday. Up until then I had a joint party with a friend born two days after me, our families did everything together and it made a lot of sense. But I insisted that I have my very own party, and I wanted a real live clown, what that means I don't know but I think my point was that I didn't want it to be my friend's dad dressed as a clown. The clown arrived in a police car, which made it seem legitimate to me.

But as an adult, birthdays have become much less exciting. Don't get me wrong, I've still had some good ones, but my birthday fell the week before exams in college, which is stressful on a number of levels. And I worked on my birthday for several years, which isn't a huge deal, unless you are there until midnight. On the positive side, my parents have visited for a couple of birthdays, I once crashed a stranger's party with friends (kind of by accident), I've been surprised with cakes thanks to my mom, and I threw a fun party for my 25th birthday.

But last year was a low point. I didn't want to move past 25, so I downplayed my birthday. My birthday was on a Monday, and I had a really fun weekend leading up to it. But on Sunday night, I slipped on ice and hit my back pretty hard. I have a history of back pain and knew this would aggravate it. I went to work the next day and had lunch out with co-workers. But by the time I got home, the only thing I wanted to do was take some pain medication, put a heating pad on my back and sleep. And except for the fact I still turned 26, I felt like I successfully ignored my birthday. 

This year I decided I did not want a repeat of last year. So I took two days off work and made plans to go to dinner and a concert with friends. The two days off work were glorious, minus the cold symptoms that arrived Monday morning. I'm a vacation day hoarder (even though our days don't carry over), and I usually only take off work when I'm traveling. But my mini-staycation allowed me to get a lot of fun projects done and enjoy myself on my birthday.

I had a blast with my friends that came out and was again reminded how blessed I am by the friends God has brought to me in this place. The concert was a "sing-in" but I'm not much for singing so I enjoyed listening to all the voices together in a great venue. I didn't get a photo at dinner but these are from the concert: