Birthdays Are Complicated (for me)

When you're a kid, birthdays are the cat's ass; the absolute pinnacle of your existence.  You literally spend your entire year - every waking moment - either looking forward to it with eager anticipation, or looking back on it with a bitter-sweet longing that you won't recognize as nostalgia until you hit middle age.  

I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point, for me, birthdays acquired an ominous pong... like a Tupperware in a hard-to-reach corner of the fridge containing a left-over science project that was once part of a delicious, festive meal.

Anybody who sent me birthday wishes this year received the following upbeat reply from me:

Thanks for the birthday wishes. 

Birthdays seem like a silly thing to get emotional about; like Steve Martin in ‘The Jerk’, when he gets all excited about the arrival of the new phone book.

Everyone gets one.  Everyone is listed.  What’s the big deal, right?!

Except that’s not really true, is it?  A lot of people don’t get a next birthday.  The book comes out, but their name isn’t in it. 

So yeah, it *is* a big deal, and I’m deeply grateful for another year... and for my wonderful family and friends.

And I mean/meant every word of it, from the bottom of my heart.

But birthdays are complicated.  And there's such a thing as 'a lie of omission'... where the moment the words leave your lips, your cheeks glow crimson with guilty knowledge of the rest of the story you just bit down on to keep if from spilling out.  That's what I felt sending out that cheery, upbeat thank-you note.

In general terms, I think some of my problem with birthdays come from secret feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness.

Some people lose their house in a fire or get cancer in the prime of life, and as they watch helplessly as the gleaming, scheduled express train of their life jumps the tracks and goes plunging into the ravine below, they demand explanations from G-d by bleating "Why Me?... what did I do to deserve this?!"   

My wiring seems to be screwed up somehow, because each time something has gone right in my life, I've found myself standing in the shuddering wake of a car that just missed me... standing under the chuppah next to the woman of my dreams... walking around a hospital delivery room holding my perfect newborn child... surveying my new, well appointed office... a small, inner child behind my eyes bleats, "Why me?... what did I do to deserve this?!"

As the years have passed, its only gotten worse. 

Friends who did everything right; studied hard in school, made responsible life decisions, chose practical careers... got 'put out' in the cruel, seemingly random game of dodge-ball that we're all forced to play.  

I took an unusual route home from work the other day; one that took me to a cemetery where a shocking number of people I've known and loved are buried.  I parked the shiny new car that my company just gave me and walked between the dusty rows until I came to the grave of a friend who had lived a charmed, magical life.  He was the smartest, most talented person I've ever known.  Everything seemed to come easily to him, and everything he touched turned to shining gold. 

Yet there I was, sobbing next to his grave... not because I missed him (I do), but because I can't seem to come to terms with why things work out for some people, but not others.  I sat there with the line from Billy Joel's 'Allentown' running in a loop in my head, "...For the promises our teachers gave, If we worked hard, If we behaved...". 

I never really worked that hard, and often didn't behave.  Yet I'm still here... amazed and confused to still be in the game.... screaming silently with a deep, maudlin sense of inadequacy, 'why me?!', when any sane person would be looking at my wonderful life, and celebrating every moment.