Birthday Wishes
Posted on | September 28, 2008 | 1 Comment Leave a comment | Print This Post
I had a great 40th birthday yesterday, due in part to a wonderful conversation I had with an older (and wiser) friend.
When we were talking last week in the midst of my overwhelm, I told her about my upcoming birthday. She made a noise that was the equivalent to rolling her eyes. She said, “I’ve told my children that they’re not allowed to call me on my birthday to wish me happy birthday.”
What?
“Oh, they can call me if they want to talk to me like it was any other day,” she continued. “I just don’t want them to call BECAUSE it’s my birthday. I don’t want to have to answer questions about my birthday, about what I’ve done on my birthday, about how my birthday’s going, about what left I have to do on my birthday … I mean, really! There’s so much pressure around our birthdays, I’d rather not have to deal with it at all!”
I may sound like a total killjoy, but I have to admit that I feel the same way. Birthdays stress me out — not the actual birthday itself, but everything around it. The obligatory smiles and conversations, the gifts even. It’s like a big sugar rush, followed by the inevitable sugar crash.
“I want you to determine what would feel good for you on your birthday,” she said. “What do YOU want?”
What do I want? Really? Was she fishing for the polite answer?
“Nope. What do YOU want? Think about it.”
So I did. And what I came up with was a bit startling. “I don’t want any presents. That is, I want to get my own present. I don’t want other people to spend time or money getting me something that I may or may not like, and then I feel weirdly obligated to keep it or use it or be excited to have it.” I felt myself starting to stress just thinking about it.
So we came up with a plan. Instead of people getting presents for me, I wanted them to get presents for themselves, myself included. That’s right: don’t get it for me, get it for you, gift wrapped and everything. That’s what I want for my birthday. That, and a chocolate cake at breakfast.
So yesterday morning my family kicked off breakfast with a fabulous chocolate cake (thanks to our friends at the Fairmont Orchid!) and there were some beautifully wrapped gifts. I have to tell you, I was honestly pretty excited and so was everyone else. And it felt real, not giddy or temporary. They handed me their wrapped present and I opened the card (which was for me) and then got to hand their present back to them and watch them unwrap it. They were so excited, too, and in the end we were just all beaming at each other, perfectly content. We all got what we wanted (they were genuinely surprised at my request that they get a gift for themselves, and there was just a lot of feel good feelings running rampant for the few days prior). It was a great way to kick off what turned out to be a great day.
It was so much fun and felt so good to me that I think I’m going to do the same thing next year, chocolate cake breakfast and all!
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November 12th, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
Belated happy birthday! And you are now one of my favorite authors – thank you for Sweet life, i loved it!