Ah, Birthdays!

Birthdays are great when you’re young, but they become really pushy later on. We don’t necessarily want to age, but birthdays are there to remind us that we can’t escape the march of time.

            On days when I feel sorry for myself because of my age, I force myself to take the time to consider all the people I have known who have left this world at a much earlier age than I am right now. And I am aware of so many because the older we get, the more people we know who pass away. The trick is to be grateful for whatever birthday is just ahead.

            I have latched on to a habit so that an approaching birthday will not take me by surprise. A couple of months before the dreaded date, I force myself to think that I am already that age. And then when the date finally arrives, I am already acclimatized so it’s not really that bad.

            When I turned 65, I remember my aunt telling me: You’re so young! Of course everything is relative, but now that I look back I realize that I was indeed young, or at least younger. The way to deal with birthdays, especially the big ones---you know the ones I mean--- is to try to find the humor in all of it.

            For my latest recent birthday, one of my sons who has a novel way of looking at life presented me with a card on which a lady in front of a computer is using white-out (you know the white stuff in little bottles we all used for corrections on paper) to correct the text on the screen. The inside caption: white out a few years and have a great day. We don’t always remember the cards we get for birthdays, but I can assure you I will remember that one. 

            I think I will spend the rest of my life whiting out a few years here and there!