4 Cents on Turning 29-and-a-half

It’s sad that after a certain age, people stop looking forward to birthdays.  As young children birthdays are second only to Christmas.  Not only is a birthday the one day a year dedicated to each individual, but there are also presents involved.  Also, each year that gets tacked on is a declaration of “I made it” and one more step to being a grown up.  And then you turn ten.  Finally, the double digits; a definite accomplishment.  Eleven and twelve are slightly difficult years where no one takes you seriously but birthdays still have that childish magic.  Then thirteen comes along and now you are a teenager.  Fourteen and fifteen signify the beginning of high school and learner’s permit.  Sixteen allows you to drive; seventeen has the best of both worlds because you are still a kid but close enough to adulthood.  Eighteen makes you a real adult instead of a pretend one where you can buy cigarettes, lottery tickets and porn.  I would like to say for the record that I purchased none of these on my eighteenth birthday despite the incessant encouragement from my friends; I just wasn’t interested. 

Between nineteen and twenty-one, there are other things to keep you occupied.  And anything you want or desire is readily available until your twenty-first.  And then it happens.  Twenty-one.  The last major exciting milestone in early adulthood.  As a side note, I did enjoy a nice twenty-first birthday dinner and I did order alcoholic drinks, even though I was again not interested.  (Yes, that’s drinks, plural, because I ordered many and, after not liking their taste, I passed them onto my sister, who happily finished them for me.)  Now that I have reached my twenty- first, what is there to look forward to?  Twenty-five when I can rent a car?  Again, not that interested, but I guess it will make things slightly more convenient when travelling?  And what after that?  Thirty when I have successfully put another decade under my belt, and here’s to sixty or seventy more? 

I think every birthday should have some special milestone, gift, or significant recognition.  Twenty-three grants you $1000 to pay off college loans.  Twenty-seven is half off purchasing a house.  Twenty nine is a free week’s vacation to some exotic location (as a consolation prize for turning 30).  Thirty-five means you get half of your left over mortgage paid off, and so on.  Since all of this is not possible, implausible, and improbable, perhaps we should just be happy to be celebrating another birthday: another day (and year) in life.  Birthdays should be the one day a year when we embrace all the old fashioned clichés.  Live life to the fullest, Carpe Diem, eat more cake, or some other nonsense no one knows the meaning of.  I mean, why not?  It’s still a day dedicated only to you (and still with presents!).  And there are a lot of people in the world that are happy you were born (if you are reading this, then I am one of those people).  So happy birthday if it’s your special day.  And happy un-birthday if it’s not!