My feeling about My Birthday!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, I admit I am a baby about birthdays. I wait for mine, and I hope people will remember and I relish emails and cards and calls and well-wrapped presents. That day on the calendar has a special sparkle about it and I feel its magic as it approaches and eke it out as long as I can manage. As I grow older (not up, but older), it gets harder to show the enthusiasm I feel for birthdays. How inappropriate, I seem to hear my peers say! Hence, this defense cum celebration.

Why not, I ask, celebrate the day you were born?

I relish other people’s birthdays because I am glad they were born and glad they are part of my life. I am grateful for the gift of their presence, the lessons they come to teach and if they are people I love, humbled by the bounty of being able to love them. The ability to remember the florist’s and pharmacist’s birthdays eludes me now, but my enthusiasm for this peopled universe in which I live is undiminished.
My own birthday is especially important to me. Of course, as a child and if I am honest, even as a college student, the attention and gifts were the most attractive part of having a birthday. Age, life, learning—what did I care about these things at eight or even eighteen. I was young even when I thought I was grown up, and I had more life ahead of me than I could even imagine—what was I going to be at 30? It was so far away I could not imagine it. Old people were in their fifties, middle-age began in the late thirties, and youth ended at around twenty.
In college and for a while thereafter, I would engineer good birthdays for myself. I would tell people what I wanted for my birthday and for a while, even selected my own cards. (Yes, as my Marathi teacher Mrs. Damle would say, when it came to birthdays, I was a ‘besharam mulgi’—shameless girl—alright!) My New-year card campaigns were motivated in some part by the thought that when people heard from me in January, they might remember that I had a birthday in October. (Let no one tell you Scorpians cannot be strategic thinkers!) They might then get organized enough to write me a letter or something. In fairness to me, that letter on a post-card or inland letter or aerogramme was really good enough. Presents were great, but I just wanted to be remembered. I wanted people to take cognizance of the fact that I am here and I am alive. That recognition was the real gift.

Over the years, in something of a defense of my devotion to the day I was born, I have developed something of an ideology about birthdays. But before propounding this ideology, let me tell you what the last few birthdays have been like.

The last birthday I celebrated was my 27th birthday. The month I turned Twenty Eight, it began to dawn on me that certain things in my life that seemed constants—places, people, memories—were all changing. I couldn’t remember things about my life—the years I spent studying French, for instance. They were such a big part of my life and then suddenly, I forgot all about them and would occasionally remember, "Oh yes, that’s right, I did that." My own life seemed to be slipping away from me and I couldn’t hold on and there was nothing ahead. I spent that entire month grieving acutely. I would find tears in my eyes as I walked to class. My throat would constrict in the middle of some mundane task. My heart was heavy with grief I could not explain at all. "It is Margaret you grieve for." Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem was the only thing that made sense. Suddenly, my life had changed and I could not fathom why or how. All I could feel was the insecurity of the transition.

In the three birthdays between then and now, I have gone through the motions of celebration. I have gone out to lunch and coffee and dinner. I have received calls, cards and presents. I have bought new clothes. But I have not celebrated.
Although life’s difficulties did not stop me from doing what needed to be done, they chipped away at my joie de vivre. Everyday was a day to get through. Every year was another year marking time. A fortress of negativity protected me from the outside world, but it did not protect me from itself, depleting the life-force within me to reinforce its ramparts. As dullness, as flesh, as depression, as lack of desire, as repressed grief and anger, and above all, as fear, this fortress against the world turned into a suffocating prison-cell. In its dank and dark quarters, my zest for life languished. The effervescent spirit of my childhood went flat.

Passivity is not acceptance. Apathy and inertia are not detachment. And lacking joy is not a sign of adulthood.

This year, I am celebrating my birthday.

This year, I am celebrating my life. I am alive, gloriously and wonderfully alive. Somewhere in the world, the sun is shining gently and lingering winter breezes ripple through the gilded saffron petals of shevanti flowers. Somewhere in the world, people are walking around with the remnants of Holi colors in their hair and under their fingernails. Fall will come, and along with me, the rest of nature celebrates birth and life.
I am alive. Is that not miracle enough?

And look at the miracle of my life (or anyone else’s): one is born; one teethes with great difficulty; learns to eat solid foods, to walk, to talk, to run, to tell people apart; one has a first day at school and college and at one’s first paying job; one travels for the first time, the fifth time, the fiftieth time; one makes friends and sometimes loses them; one hurts, fails, is wounded, loses, gives up and then one survives all that and turns thirty-two… is this not miracle enough to warrant a celebration?

So this is my ideology: Birthdays should be celebrated because one should celebrate life. And one’s celebration of life begins with a celebration of the day that one’s life in the world began.

I am so happy to be alive. After years, there is joy in my heart, there is desire in my mind, there is excitement in my spirit. My birthday celebration is a celebration of all these things.

But this too will pass, and when this celebration is over, it will remain in my mind a reminder of this mood and this moment. These words will remind me of the possibility of joy and the importance of expressing it. The gifts I receive will break or tear or dry up or run out, but the thought and affection that went into them with sustain me through other times. These people from different, even some long-lost, corners of my life that remember and call or write or email me, are the reasons my life is worth celebrating. In the moment that I am in their thoughts and in their hearts, I am alive.
It is that life that I will celebrate this year. It is my birthday. I am happy to be alive. I look back and my life looks pretty good, in spite of the hard times and in spite of the things and people it lacks. Today, as though for the first time, I look at my life and see that it is MY life. Mine, not anyone else’s, with all its tribulations and triumphs, bearing the impress of my own thoughts, dreams, deeds and decisions. It is MY life, lived with my unique passions and experienced as only I can experience it. Strikingly flawed, brilliantly bungled, passionately imperfect—it is all mine. All the tears, all the complaints, all the giggling, all the pleasure—all mine. There is no one like me, there is no life like mine. This uniqueness is what I celebrate this year.

How about you all?????????? Want to Join me!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow Vidya,

This wowed me alright!

What a write up, what emotions and what a palette of words and word play. Breathtaking:)

Vidya, you go ahead girl, celebrate to your heart's content. Yes, you have every reason to celebrate...To be alive, to be able to see, feel and think...Eat our daily meals and listen to music and enjoy God's creations around us....every bit of it is a reason to celebrate.
You have said it so well and you have said it with such color!
We lived many years in Germany. I was raised on the saying..don't ask a man his income and a woman her age!
Well, that took a tumble in Germany. Any age was no embarrassment to anyone. Birthdays were celebrated by young and old alike.....And...one celebrates the birthday oneself!! Nobody waits for someone else to throw a party for you. You do it yourself! You invite, cook and bake and have people over to celebrate your birthday. I thought it was very odd in the beginning. My hubby and myself tried to keep our birthdays under cover..with no success! At his workplace, he was sent flowers and every one asked him where the cake was on his birthday!! He called home in desperation and sent me running to fetch a cake and deliver to him so he could treat his colleagues!! Friends pestered us till they got to know our b'dates and said they would show up for the following evening for a party!?
We had no choice, we simply fell into step with them and celebrated all of our birthdays with all the hoopla...and...learned to enjoy it! Everyone there makes a big thing about their b'days.
Now, after reading your post here, what little questions and doubts I had about this practice is cleared. Now I know why we should celebrate.
Well, hope I get to know of your b'day in time...I will send you a greeting Vidya....for many many more:))
This one is in advance!>>>>

L, Kamla

Vidya

what a wonderful write-up. One is never too old to celebrate their birthday. After all, it comes only once in a year and everyone deserves to cherish it as a very special day.

Happy Birthday, dear, in advance!

Vidya,
Wonderful write up..Nicely brought out the emotions with it. why not....It is true..it is our b'day, that itself brings a celebration...very well written the importance of celebrating ours...
After joining IL, I was overenjoyed to see the wishes pouring in by our friends here...they made my day..
In our family, my parents remember, my husband remembers my children remembers only the next day...

sriniketan

Oh, dear Vidya,

You held me in your sway throughout the time I took to read your wonderful post. One of the finest pieces I read in the recent past.

I too had misgivings, misunderstandings about celebrating my b'day. When somebody crosses the forties, a birthday is a poignant reminder of one's own mortality. That was what I thought for a while and did not even wish to be remembered, let alone cut a cake and throw a party.

But then better sense prevailed over me. Simply because one is not reminded one's mortality, it does not cease to exist.Reminded or not, I along with the billions who inhabit this world, am a mortal. When my Dad talks to be so vexed about life I tell him in no uncertain terms:
"Simply because you are older than me, you are no way close to death than me. "
To each one, death remains as a perfectly indeterminate distance, which is not mathematically proportional (direct or indirect) to one's age. With this realisation, like you, now I have started looking forward to these b'days.
I relish the gifts, am moved by the cards and calls I receive and for the past three years, am almost moved to tears by the wishes I receive from kind ladies in this great community.

Passivity is not acceptance. Apathy and inertia are not detachment. And lacking joy is not a sign of adulthood.

In fairness to me, that letter on a post-card or inland letter or aerogramme was really good enough. Presents were great, but I just wanted to be remembered. I wanted people to take cognizance of the fact that I am here and I am alive. That recognition was the real gift.


Somewhere in the world, the sun is shining gently and lingering winter breezes ripple through the gilded saffron petals of shevanti flowers. Somewhere in the world, people are walking around with the remnants of Holi colors in their hair and under their fingernails. Fall will come, and along with me, the rest of nature celebrates birth and life.

I am alive. Is that not miracle enough?

Loved every word in your post. These lines would stay in my memory.
Your write-up is one of the finest examples of modern English professor, and if I had had the powers I would prescribe this as a lesson in English 101 - a compulsory course for those want to communicate better.

Great job, Vidya. I am proud of you.
love,

Hi Vidya,

Reading your Birthday feelings....was the best thing that I could do to start my day with...Great piece.....I read the full post without stopping to blink....

I have or........ should say I had, until recent past, the ability to remember everyone's birthday.....that ability or the enthusiasm seems to be waning away now.
But your thoughts have rekindled in me, to start over all again...Yes, birthdays are a celebration....I will now try to give the joy to others that I remember them on their b'day and always...................
I too have now decided that my next birthday this year , in October, is going to be "...a celebration of all things".

As you say....there is no one like me.
I am unique........ like everyone else here..........

Dear Vidya,

on this wonderful piece of yours dear. Yes Life is a celebration for its uniqueness and we should do the same. If I have to select and quote your words then I have to quote the whole post itself. Each word mesmerised me.

It is also true that we do tend to think why should we celebrate when we are reaching forties and some do say that we should actually mourn as we are 1 yr shorter in our life span. But your post really brings out the reason to celebrate.

for such a wonderful post, dear. Keep more coming.

Awesome Writeup Vidya Mam,

Just loved each line of your post..

Birthdays should be celebrated because one should celebrate life. And one’s celebration of life begins with a celebration of the day that one’s life in the world began.

Wow..Wonderful lines....

Expecting more from you..:)

dear vidya,
that was a wonderful post...u have brought out the emotions very nicely...me too love to celebrate my birthday..it is not just another day for me...love it when people remember and make a big deal out of it...so have a great birthday and enjoy yourself...

Mindi

This year, I am celebrating my life. I am alive, gloriously and wonderfully alive. Somewhere in the world, the sun is shining gently and lingering winter breezes ripple through the gilded saffron petals of shevanti flowers. Somewhere in the world, people are walking around with the remnants of Holi colors in their hair and under their fingernails. Fall will come, and along with me, the rest of nature celebrates birth and life.
I am alive. Is that not miracle enough?

And look at the miracle of my life (or anyone else’s): one is born; one teethes with great difficulty; learns to eat solid foods, to walk, to talk, to run, to tell people apart; one has a first day at school and college and at one’s first paying job; one travels for the first time, the fifth time, the fiftieth time; one makes friends and sometimes loses them; one hurts, fails, is wounded, loses, gives up and then one survives all that and turns thirty-two… is this not miracle enough to warrant a celebration?


Hi Vidya,

My thoughts on reading this is undescribable.Each and every line,so beautifully written shows your zest for life and the joy to live.I loved reading every word . I am going to print this write-up and paste it on the wall,so that I can enjoy it again and again. What a great write-up .Especially loved the above lines. Wishing you the very best for your birthday and all your celebrations.

meera