Another Year, Another Turn Around the Sun

I haven't done a blog in over a year. Mainly this has to do with life being so full and just taking in the amazing things that have happened to me since the beginning of 2011. Planning a wedding and doing home renovations will pretty much put a hold on finding time to write. But things are good. Sylvia and I are closing in on our one year wedding anniversary and the home repairs (as slow as they have been) are coming along nicely. We have even added three new additions to our family with two dogs and a cat in that time. Life is good.

I just celebrated another birthday as well. Thirty-eight marks several milestones for me. The biggest of which is that I have a twenty year class reunion coming up in a few months. That really makes me feel old. I ran into a guy I went to school with last week. He looked old. I could tell he was kinda looking at me like, "I can't believe you're still wearing earrings." Different strokes I guess. The earring thing is still an object of slight contention with some people. A few months ago my wife looks at me and says, "When are going to take out those earrings? I mean, you're almost forty." My reply was, "At what age are you going to take yours out?" Then she gave me the standard answer of it being different for women which I think is crap. I'm saying this to take a shot at Sylvia. Believe me I've heard it from many other people over the last few years. I just don't see why a man having earrings is still such a big deal. I mean this is 2012, aren't we past all those old fashioned social norms by now? Aren't there bigger things to worry about than whether or not a man who is near forty is still rocking earrings? Admittedly at some point it gets a bit ridiculous but I don't feel like I'm there just yet. And when I get there I'll take them out. But not a second before.

Two years ago I wrote a blog about my birthday. I re-read it this morning before I started writing this blog. A lot has changed in two years. I still have some hang ups about my birthday but I've come to accept it and most other holidays (I will never get on board with Valentine's Day) as not just another day on the calender but as a celebration and a time to spend with family. The last two Christmases have been not only enjoyable but I've looked forward to spending time with the people I love. This year I was finally going to actively enjoy my birthday as well.

Last year Sylvia got a full dose of my birthday funk. She was not expecting it and I could tell it really bummed her out. So this year I made a conscious effort to try and enjoy the day. For the first time in so long I can't remember when I actually took off work on the day of my birthday. There have been a couple birthdays I didn't work but that was mainly because of lack of opportunity. When I was a drinker I usually took the day after to recover. As years wore on that recovery time could stretch for days. It wasn't pretty. Thankfully I don't put myself through that any longer.

After last year I could tell that Sylvia was a little gun shy this time around. And who could blame her. She genuinely wanted to give me a nice birthday last year and I pretty much blocked every effort she made. It's true, I can be a bit difficult some times. I'm working on it. But we did spend all day together and I really enjoyed that. She hasn't felt well for a couple weeks and we've had a few surprise financial situations arise so I knew that today was going to be low keyed and I'm fine with that. I don't need a big production. Just spending the day with her was all I needed. I did do something cool though. Last year Sylvia and Emmy got me a gift certificate from Blackbird Tattoo and I finally got around to using it. I had to do some scrambling for money to pay for all the work I had done but I got there. Such is life.

I will say that one thing has kind of bothered me and it is completely my fault. I have never had my birth date on my facebook page. I also have never gone around telling people that my birthday was coming up. Now I am reaping the fallout of this. I did put my birth date on my profile recently and because of that I did hear from some people that I normally wouldn't and I'm grateful for that. But for the most part it was a very quiet day. Very few texts or phone calls. A handful of posts on my facebook wall. No birthday cards in the mail. No cake. No presents. No party.

Like I said there are reasons for all of this. Times are tough right now for a lot of us so no presents or party is understandable. Monday was a federal holiday so the birthday cards would most likely not arrive in a timely manner anyway. The last two years I have done a fast in January and couldn't eat birthday cake and this year I'm trying to shed a few pounds as it is so cake would be counter productive. And as far as the birthday wishes go I have made it down right difficult in the past for anyone to even know it was my birthday let alone wish me a happy one. The people I did hear from are mostly the ones I expected to hear from. They are the few who either have known me long enough to have it on their calendar or would be damned that I was going to stand in the way of them brightening my day. As far as the ones I am closest to who left me alone I know why. I have hid from my birthday for so long that why would this year be any different? Why would thirty-eight be any different than thirty-seven? Or thirty-six? Or thirty-five? Or any of the other birthdays I've fought against over the last, well forever?

It wasn't always like this but it was close. I have had some great birthdays over the years. Twenty-Five through twenty-nine were mostly good. Especially if we skip twenty-seven. Thirty-five was a pretty good one up until the Jager bombs started. After that it's all kind of black. But this year was going to start a new trend for my birthday. I was going to enjoy it. I was going to embrace it. I was going to finally see what everyone else was doing right on their birthday. I guess I should have informed everyone else.