What mature person celebrates another step towards emptiness?
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When I was a child, birthdays were not so much celebrated as tolerated, put up with, or, better yet, politely ignored.
Sure, my mom and dad tried to make sure my little brother and I had great birthdays, but when it came to celebrating their own birthdays, they made it clear that, generally speaking, there was no point in giving presents, buying cakes, or even mentioning it. I can't say when my parents stopped celebrating their own birthdays, but it must have been before I was born. My mother was 38 and my father was 45 at the time, and they apparently no longer thought it was fun or festive to celebrate their ages every year.
In fact, I can only recall a few occasions when one parent coaxed my brother and me into buying the other something for their birthday. I don’t know what made me make these exceptions to the rule, but I do remember how awkward it felt to give gifts. Growing up in an environment where my parents’ ages were only vaguely known and their birthdays essentially undiscussed, it seemed wrong to give my mother a copy of her favorite Leo McCarey film, An Affair to Remember, starring Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. Of course, it was nice to give her a gift I knew she would appreciate, but I knew it might taint an otherwise pleasant memory: my mother would have been happy if her sons had given her the gift on any other day than her birthday.
As for my mother, I’m guessing that her birthday phobia was pretty simple: She just didn’t like getting old, and she didn’t want her two young sons, of all people, to remind her of it. As for my father, I’ve come to believe that he simply viewed celebrating his birthday as something he’d outgrown, well, by middle school. As an adult — a husband, a father, a CEO — he felt that celebrating his birthday was a waste of time indulging in his own desires.
On one of those rare birthday celebrations for my father, I remember the three of us—my mother, my brother, and I—buying him a cake for his 64th birthday. (Not that we were celebrating his 64th birthday—I just did a quick mental calculation.) Why, I don’t know. Unlike my mother, my father was grateful for the gesture, but he’d spent so long cultivating an image of being a selfless giver when it came to his family that it still seemed a little odd to make such a fuss about his special day—which to him was just another day. I think he even cut the grass afterward. The irony was that my father didn’t even like cake.
First and foremost, my mother believed that birthdays were for children—little people for whom a birthday was simply an excuse to have fun, not a sign of approaching old age. This attitude amused my grandmother, who seemed unable to understand why anyone, no matter their age, would refuse a party in their honor. Perhaps remarkably, my grandmother lived to be 100.
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As I reflect on my birthday next week, I come to the conclusion that my parents were partly right. Putting aside the practicalities of celebrating my own birthday—should I order a cake with congratulations?—I have long outgrown the desire to view each passing birthday as yet another invitation to unbridled joy. I agree with my mother: such things are best left to children, who, by nature, love to be the center of attention at their own little celebration. For adults, expressing the same level of unbridled joy over
Sourse: theamericanconservative.com
