I have made an executive decision. Consider me Barack Obama sitting in the Oval Office, surrounded by dignitaries. No you see me reach for a pen (a mont blanc, of course) and sign into reality the fact that I'm officially changing my birthday date.
Why would someone do something so radical? It certainly not because I am trying to hide my age. I'm 41 and a lot of time, effort, and experience went into getting to who I am right now. I don't feel like that's something I need to down play. So let me ask you a question: what is the worst day of the year to have a birthday? If you, said Christmas, you'd be partially right, and I really feel for those poor buggers. They should take a page from my book and officially change the date of their birthday. But, no it isn't Christmas, the suckiest day to have a birthday is New Years Day.
One of the problems with having your birthday on New Years day is that you are always competing with some other event that people either have to, or would prefer to, attend. While that is insulting, what I've come to understand is that so much gets planned; usually in such extravagant ways for New Years Eve (NYE) that going to a birthday party is anticlimactic and a waste of a day specifically designed for parties. I can't compete with theme parties, murder mystery nights, and gigantic affairs at fancy restaurants and hotels. I'm awesome, but I can't muster up a group of DJ's to keep you on the dance floor all night. Plus, I like to go to bed early. If you celebrate my birthday there is a good chance you'll be in bed when its time to ring in the new year. I've tried to counter this problem by having my birthday a few days early, in the afternoon, just having a small group over, or going for a low key supper. All these attempts have been spectacular failures because the fact that it's a birthday always gets lost in the big fantastical event that should be New Years Eve. People just take for granted that you just need to go big for NYE. I become a largely forgotten cog in what usually becomes another disappointing NYE party, not a birthday party.
After 41 years of being forgotten, except by my mother, but honestly, giving birth is a life event, how could she forget that? And a few good friends, I've decided to officially change the date of birthday. Let's face it, Dec 31 is a terrible day for a birthday. You know the cake and card you get at work for your birthday? I never get that. Because very few people work Dec 31, and they won't remember to do it before because everyone is in a race to get to Christmas. After Christmas everyone is recovering from their holidays and forget. Ask yourself what are people usually doing at the end of December? Half are bobbing in an ocean somewhere, laying in bed counting down the days until family leaves their house (or until they can leave); at a huge, expensive and probably largely disappointing New Years Eve party (why do these always suck anyway?), or let's face it sleeping after a hectic Christmas. After a lifetime of jokingly saying that the world is celebrating my birthday with me, I'm done lying. I hate December 31, so I'm changing by birthday to July 21. From now, until I die, my birthday will be celebrated on July 21. With one caveat, I give my mother permission to call me on Dec 31. Everyone else, update your date books.
So I have started to strongly hint to Mark about the handbag I would like for my birthday. And reminded him that birthday's require a present, preferably one that demonstrates how much he loves me, and how well he listens.
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