The Importance of Birthdays

A good part of what consumes what me and my husband talk about, think about, negotiate around, and fight about is the subject of birthdays. Our relationship officially started on my birthday, which was my 30th, and which was such a landmark in the identification and creation of my third decade. And the angst and loathing of my second decade was finally put to rest.

And the year after we had limited our christmas gifts to $10 a person, we chose to think about indulgence rather than restraint. And several years later, we came up with an 8 day celebration of John's birthday, dubbing it "Johnakkuh". For the eight days leading up to John's birthday, I would give him a gift. All together, the gifts could have much more meaning, but individually, they were each tiny thoughts or ideas that represented who I thought John was. Each gift was like a tiny little component of his personality. Each gift was small, but when I arrived home each day I was expected to have something in my hand for John.

And directly following our anniversary weekend, where we talked about the difference in our married anniversary and the anniversary of when we started dating which was as you know my birthday, we talked about no longer celebrating the time we started dating, and instead leaving that day to celebrate my birthday only. And in the following weeks where we found out John had cancer, where news just kept getting worse and worse until he lost his hair.

And then it was actually John's birthday that year when he found out he could stop his chemotherapy early, that his cancer was gone. And when we bought him that expensive guitar even though we had like $175k in medical bills to try to pay. And Christmas was very quiet with my dad in town we didn't even cook dinner.

And when I turned 40 we went to Paris where I took a cooking class on my birthday which was taught in French at some Jean Paul Gaultier looking cooking salon with a 10k instant freezer. And on the day I turned 40 we sat in our rented apartment and ate pastries from the patisseries we had visited and drank wine and ate roast chicken.

And then it was the year the retail shop opened on John's birthday, that he could think of no better way to celebrate his birthday than to watch his wife fulfill her dream. It was for that year and the several other years where he sacrificed his birthday while I pursued my dreams. It was for that sacrifice that I do not feel like having such gigantic expectations for a day that should be like any other day, only it is the day I was born.

And it is on this particular birthday, where my brother has decided to hold his wedding the day prior to my birthday, that I think I am starting to feel differently about celebrating birth, year after year. I keep thinking that this feeling, this drive, is going away, and I can finally celebrate without expectations, the true being that is me, and why i was put on the planet, and why John was put there with me.