Remember when you were a child and you'd be counting down the days until your birthday? Those were exciting times. It was like Christmas but just for you (unless you had a twin...) Even teenagers relish these occasions, because every year a birthday occurs gets you one more year towards the golden eighteen milestone. In your twenties it's an excuse to party your face clean off your body. You gather all your cronies, head to your favourite bar and pity the older folks who don't seize this opportunity every 52 weeks. How can someone NOT celebrate their birthday? It's literally the one day of the year where all attention is on you and you alone (again, unless you have a twin...). Now I'm not especially concerned with growing old. Even if I were, ignoring birthdays would not be the way to deal with it. Maybe it ties in with the dwindling novelty of partying, but once you get past your twenties, birthdays just don't hold that special appeal. You've most likely heard people much older confess they either forget when their birthday is coming up or flat out can't even recall how old they are. I get it now. I understand. You've reached the age where you've been working for several years, moved out and maybe started a family. You've stopped counting because maybe it's just not a major aspect of your life anymore. If you're fortunate enough to have some disposable income, you don't need to wait until your birthday to buy the things you've been after. You can go out pretty much any evening of the week if you so choose. Because you're an adult and to hell with it being a Monday night! You've done the huge social gatherings, the countdowns and the practised smiles as you read the lovely poem Aunty Mavis wrote in your card as you pocket the twenty quid she slipped in there. You're not ungrateful or cynical about birthdays, you've just done them so many times. It's still important to celebrate them in your own way, but after thirty or so of them, you're no longer under pressure to give a damn. And that's a blessed feeling I've come to embrace.
