Is my birthday truly that important? This is the question I’ve been asking myself since I turned 42 a few days ago.
As a kid, I always loved my birthdays because my parents usually gave me tons of presents and lots of surprises. Each year my birthday cake was also quite unique and special too. (FYI, my favorite was definitely some type of an ice cream cake!) By the time I turned 21 my birthdays began to change. There weren’t any big parties being held for me anymore, and presents were becoming less and less, until the only thing I was getting from most people who remembered was a card.
When I reached that 30th milestone, my partner at the time threw me a big celebration where I was the center of attention again just like I had been as a kid on each of my birthdays. For the next nine years, I did everything I could to make each of my birthdays all about me just like my 30th had been. Unfortunately, nothing really ever came close to meeting any of those expectations. This consistently led me to feeling down on most of those birthdays.
I tried to recapture the glory of my 30th birthday once again when I hit the next milestone, my 40th. Instead of allowing someone else to plan that day though, I controlled much of the process and invited as many people as I knew to come to my party. When only a handful of them showed up, with most of them bringing nothing more than a hungry stomach, I became very dejected and even somewhat angry.
Zoom forward to two years later, and it’s now the morning of my 42nd birthday. It’s then I discover my partner has completely forgotten about it, which leads me to totally unraveling at the seams. I then proceed to berate him about being self-absorbed and self-centered, but that sits so uncomfortably within me after doing so, it leads me to ask the question I began with, is my birthday truly that important?
The irony I discovered when that answer came is one that was pretty hard to swallow. I realized that I was the one who has actually been self-absorbed and self-centered for years, not only on all of my birthdays, but on most other days as well. Until just a few years ago, I was living almost my entire life in this way. But through my work in 12 Step recoveries, I started seeing the root of all my problems was this selfishness. That became the catalyst that started my shift in life to one of selflessness, but with one exception. I continued to allow myself to believe that the day of my birthday should be the one exception where I’m still allowed to be fully selfish. What I wasn’t seeing was how that belief was the exact reason why I rarely enjoyed most of my birthdays since the age of 21.
That selfishness blinded me from truly seeing the love I did receive on any of my birthdays. Instead, the only thing I generally saw was what I wasn’t receiving, and all that did was make me miserable and complain about most of them. Looking back on each of them now with this realization, I can see how there were many wonderful things I received each year. Whether it was a phone call, a warm embrace, a card, a small gift, or some other loving gesture, I always did have something positive happen every single birthday and my 42nd was one of them. Between a dozen phone calls, several e-mails, a few text messages, some song singing voicemails, a couple of incredibly special gifts, a round of applause at a recovery meeting, many warm embraces and handshakes, and two great meals, I genuinely had a pretty awesome birthday.
So is my birthday truly that important? The more I step out of my own way and remove more selfishness out of my life, the more I see probably thinking so is being selfish itself. But the more I let go of that unwanted trait, the more I’m able to see the real truth such as this…There have always been others who felt I was important enough to them, to show me their love on each of my birthdays, including my partner who did so later that night…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson