birthdays...

oddly enough, i don't really remember a great birthday. maybe that's what happens when your parents conspire to conceive you with the timing of the eventual birth being two days before christmas. as a matter of fact, i remember very few birthdays at all...

there was the pizza hut party when i was three. which must have been fun. i mean, the pictures - my only real memory of the occasion - point to a great time. and then there was...

oh yeah. there was my 16th birthday. memorable for a couple reasons. i really wanted a car, just like all other 16 year olds. and i really wanted my driver's license - again, just like all other 16 year olds. but, see, i was the oldest of six in a fairly conservative family. and for my "car" birthday what did i get? i got a dresser. five drawers of oak bliss (which, incidentally, i still own). not the ideal gift for a hormonal teenager, however. and that driver's licence. yeah - that didn't happen for another three months. oldest-kid growing pains...

then there was my 21st birthday. actually the most memorable of all. i was home from college. it was two nights before christmas - just like it is every year. my dad had me go to the liquor store and get beer. and my parents invited three of my closest high school friends over. we talked. it was actually a really good night. but that was it for 21...

the only other birthday i remember is 28. i'd just met the ex-wife a couple months before and she was leaving for two weeks the next day. so we got a hotel room near the airport and swam in the vacant pool. good night. early morning...

why do i bring up the birthdays - or lack thereof - in my life? partly because ian just had his second, and i don't ever want him to think that his birthday isn't a day to celebrate him. and because through all that i've been through recently, i understand that we all need to be celebrated sometimes. we all need to feel like the most important person in someone's world - if only for just a day. heck - it doesn't even have to be a birthday... and maybe the best way of showing a person their impact on our own life is to celebrate them unexpectedly?

i imagine that would be a really good day. maybe one day i'll get to find out...