We all grow older every year, that’s just a fact of life.
Yet, some how every year, I am happy and proud that my son is turning a year older but ever since my mid 20s I have had a tendency to get depressed about my own birthday.
The funny thing is, I didn’t even know when my birthday was until I was about 20 years old…
We never celebrated birthdays while my brother and I were young. Our parents were divorced and for whatever reason never had birthday parties for us. But at least they knew when my brother’s birthday was! They never knew when mine was.
Every year they would have the same fight over what date my birth date was and every year, each of them would change their minds about the date! All through my school years, anytime we needed my birth date, my parents would guess… and argue over it. All I knew was, it was at the end of August – it was never celebrated in school, like the other kid’s birthdays because it happened over summer vacation and it was never celebrated at home because no one knew when it was and so, I always felt very sad about my birthday.
Sometime during my 20th year, I ran into an old friend from highschool and he asked me if I had ever found out my birth date. I said that I had not and he suggested that I ask for my birth certificate and check that. He always was brilliant! Lol I finally knew my birthday!
As I started inching toward my 30s, I started getting depressed as my birthday approached. I remember being a basket case the summer that I turned 26. Lol I had always wanted to “grow old gracefully” like Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall but I felt more like I was growing older kicking and Screaming. Finally, I realized that the way to look forward to my birthday and not be depressed about it, was to plan a birthday party!
It seems that most people my age are sick of birthday parties. I think for me, it’s still novel because of not celebrating when I was growing up. This year was different because of the pandemic and social distancing. So, this year I could not have a party but I did have a wonderful day!
I forgot to order my birthday cake ahead of time, so we had cupcakes on my birthday and we’ll have my birthday cake this week. On my birthday, Jason took off from work and Josh came home from Philly and we had a lovely day together!
We visited the National Zoo in Washington, d.c. and then came home to have steamed crabs for dinner. I was really hoping to see the Giant Pandas while we were at the zoo. Unfortunately, they did not come outside but something even better than that happened! Mei Xiang, the female Giant Panda gave birth to a healthy cub that day, so now I share a birthday with a Giant Panda!
