Today is my 39th birthday. Birthdays don't seem as important as they did when I was younger. I remember turning 12. My parents allowed me to invite a group of friends over after school to play video games in our basement and to have cake. The morning of my birthday, I was so excited and nervous that I was unable to keep my breakfast in me. I was literally out the door to catch the school bus, and my food made a second, more unappealing appearance on the front porch.
Subsequent birthdays were just as interesting and exciting. My 13th birthday was celebrated with a "pseudo" bar mitzvah, again in my parent's basement. I grew up non-religious, never stepping foot in a synagogue, but my mother insisted that I have a bar mitzvah party. She invited our family and friends, and filled the basement with streamers and balloons. My mother was the center of attention--the position she preferred then and now--making long speeches about what it meant for me to become a man, inviting specific guests to join me on our dance floor to light a special candle with me on a cardboard cake my father made to look like a Torah. I have to admit, I liked the party aspect of the night. I received numerous hugs and kisses from girl-friends and scored over $1300 in cash, most of which I blew on video games and things long forgotten.
16, 18, 21, 25, 30, all of these birthdays are milestones of some sort. Several of the birthdays in between mean less, but still hold value as life gets more fulfilling. Today, I turned 39 and as I sit, alone in a Fort Smith, Arkansas Panera Bread, I think about how unimportant birthdays have become in my life. My birthdays that is. Not the ones celebrated by my wife, or my kids, or friends and family. I'm not sad and depressed it's my birthday. I'm not even bummed that I am alone. Seriously. It just feels like another day...another business trip...another town.
So, I decided that in an effort to make my birthdays mean more to me, I would begin a blog. I have a few friends whose blogs I follow on a regular basis--getkinetic.typepad.com, wood-tang.com, burdly.blogspot.com, cancerbitch.blogspot.com--they all inspire me to do the same. To get my random, daily thoughts out. Who knows where this will go. I may decide it is a bad idea. I may decide that my writing is horrible. My hope, however, is to learn something about myself. To rediscover the excitement I had each year, in anticipation for the next January 14. I miss the butterflies of my youth.
You are an awesome writer, Cory. I think it's great that you are writing again on a daily basis. It's almost like exercise-you feel a need to do it, and when you do it, you feel settled. I see the results of this and they are good-please don't stop! I must admit, I also (selfishly) like the fact that I can immediately read the things you write :) I love you, thanks for sharing this with me.
ReplyDelete