Happy

Fast approaching is my birthday. When I was a boy, I couldn't wait for my birthday to come. In those days, certain things were assured. There was a big party with everyone from my class. They really had to come, and it's debatable just how many would have of their own volition, or how many would have bought me a present with their own money. As it was, their parents provided the money and they piled up for me a bounty of action figures. Birthdays were a good thing then.

I don't happen to anticipate them with much eagerness anymore. I trace this trend back to college and its conclusion. Birthdays were fine even as I was still attending classes, but the moment I graduated, each one after that became more unpleasant. I think that there ceased to be anything to gain from getting older, and all there was to experience was the steady march to the end of the trail, as it were. Being still very young, that was an immensely unappetizing prospect.

Probably a problem was that there were now no quasi-friends compelled to attend a grand party in my honor, and so I was left with nothing but those melancholy thoughts. There were no friends about even during college, and certainly not after that. For my first birthday here in Los Angeles, I went out to dinner alone, then returned home and had some of a birthday cake bearing my name that I had bought and paid for. It was as festive an occasion as it sounds.

These days I am somewhat more blessed. Last year, as I may have said, a surprise party was mounted in my honor. It meant as much as any gesture I can think of that people would make that much trouble. I don't know that a second surprise party in a row is likely, but I am confident that again the unpleasantness of getting older will be assuaged by the presence of good friends, without whom even the good times are worth little.