Ten Minute Missive

I like birthdays.  Really, I do.  There’s chocolate and cake and presents and a party with the people you care about and even more chocolate. And when we’re being honest, aging.  I like all these things.

Yes, I just publicly said I like aging.  Just as many have noted before, aging beats the alternative.  So I don’t mind getting older.  Yes, I wish aging wasn’t so noisy when bending down and such things, but I don’t mind the changing hair color and crow’s feet.  Because at least I have hair, right?  Again, it beats the alternative.

And when birthdays come around, I love having parties and seeing the folks I got to have another 365 days to cherish.  Because if I’m being truthful, that is what a birthday celebration is actually for — celebrating the opportunity to have had all those days with the people who matter to you.  Not what might be given to you in a box with a pretty bow on top.

Last year I had this great plan of how to celebrate my 42nd anniversary of coming into this world:  I was going to have a “Meaning of Life” party.  I could think of no better way of celebrating than being surrounded by my family and friends– otherwise known as the basis for meaning in my life.  (If you’ve never read Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, y’all might want to rectify that deficit in your reading repertoire.  Plus, it will make the reference much more clear.)

But since the meaning of my life is really all about family and friends, my birthday celebration (aka PARTY) is being set aside for both my children and my husband.  Oh, that isn’t to say I won’t celebrate my birthday.  Because I will.  It just won’t be with a party with me standing front and center.  Instead, first I’ll take my daughter to a party for her and her friends and then I’ll be cheering on my husband and kids as they race the Muddy Buddy.

Which I’m pretty okay with.  As long as there is still chocolate, of course.

Stay tuned for photos of me, freshly turned forty-two years of age, and covered in mud as I help my Littlest compete in his first ever race, the Mini-Muddy Buddy, on Sunday, October 17th.  And who knows, I just may find that my new favorite way of celebrating my birthday is actually crawling through a mud-pit.

If you’ve been waiting for a chance to celebrate something, feel free to gather together the family and friends who make your world better and have your own “Meaning of Life” party.  I hope you’ll share the photos.  And the chocolate if you have it!  Be well my friends, be well.