Birthday Reflection

For kids, a birthday is that one day of the year when everyone seeks to please you. Presents, parties, and cake are important aspects of the event. I smile when I remember this childhood slumber party, complete with a Scooby-Doo cake, great friends, and plenty of scary stories and practical jokes to last all night (remember sticking a sleeping friend’s hand in cold water to try and make her pee her sleeping bag?).

As an adult, I — like many of us — find birthdays particularly useful for reflection. Sure, there’s always New Year’s Eve to look back on the previous calendar year, but a birthday is better for registering significant life events.

Twenty-one years ago I got my driver’s license and celebrated with my family and Chili’s. I got to drive home (just me and my sister) and didn’t quite clear the curb. Oops

Nineteen years ago I was visiting Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California for the first time. It was also the first time I traveled alone, flying across the country and taking a shuttle from the airport to the college for my interview. I called my parents from a pay-phone to tell them I just had to go to this school. (I started there six months later.) I can vividly remember the nervous excitement at being so “grown up” and yet having my whole life ahead of me.

I never would have imagined that five years later I’d be married to a guy I’d known since age 13, living back on the East Coast, working in an industry that hadn’t even existed when I graduated high school.

It feels like the past twenty years have flown by in the blink of an eye… marriage, kids, jobs, travel… joy, pain, laughter, and tears. Stuff that seemed so important back then feels inconsequential now. Funny how that works.

So today as I ponder where I was on this day in my history, I also wonder where I’ll be on birthdays of the future. It’s crazy to think that in five years I might have two kids in high school (one almost in college!). Will we still be living in the same house? Have the same cars? Hang out with the same friends? Will we finally be able to speak Spanish?

And what will I remember about today? About this year in my life?

I look around and take a mental snapshot of my family, my home, and my life. I’m blessed beyond measure and my cup overflows — really — regardless of the kink in my neck, the dust on my shelves, or the worries of my mind.

Thank you for being a part of it all.