This Thing Called a Birthday

Some people celebrate this thing called a birthday. I have also heard of people celebrating a birth week. Supposedly, you celebrate the day you were born on. This is wholly arbitrary because you were born on a very specific time on that day, so why not celebrate a birth hour? Anyways, jokes aside, as mentioned in brief by @papilloncharity, we share this glorious day called a birthday.

But rather than celebrate in toto, it makes me always think about things when I hit this weird stage in the year.

Why and how is this day different from the others?

Now that I have a girlfriend, @urban.scout, for who birthdays are important days in the calendar year, I need to change my attitude a bit. But it never really stops me from pondering this really strange idea.

And it starts with gifts. I heard the bell ring and went down to receive this gift from my loved one. She spoiled me with "study snacks" (she knows I am marking papers). What are these gifts we give people on their birthdays? Do we not remind them of their aging? I tend to shy away from gift giving and gift receiving because I find the practice funny. But now with the loved one in my life, I am trying to appreciate what the gesture is about. She is working on me.

But then there are all the traditions we follow as well. I have been following a tradition for a couple of years now. On my birthday, I buy myself a 1-liter beer of a very specific beer and I bake this 15-minute microwave chocolate cake with dulce de leche on it. That has been the unbroken tradition for the last I think 7 years now. What is this thing we call tradition but a reiteration of the same thing year after year?

The weather was also funny. From the early morning sun, a strange mist covered the mountains. As if it could feel my soul become older. Jokes aside, the weather lately has been funny. There was even a small spell of rain whilst the sun was shining. In my home language, we say "Jakkals trou met wolf se vrou" when the sun is shining but it is raining. Directly translated, it says "Fox marries wolf's wife". (I see on Wikipedia, it is called a sunshower.) It was a strange day.

In any case, birthdays are still weird to me. It is a reminder that you are getting older. I'd rather not think about it in that way.

I hope you had a good day.

All of the photographs are my own, taken with my iPhone. I also sent all of these photographs to my girlfriend @urban.scout and my family. The musings are also my own.

Stay safe.