5.11.2014

Happy Birthday to Me?

Remember when the entire year revolved around your birthday? Your mom came to school with sloppily frosted cupcakes and the class sang loudly to you as crumbs fell from their lips. Your mom then disregarded your siblings' wishes to make your favorite dinner and even let you off the hook from doing chores. And a few days later, the pile of mysterious, brightly wrapped gifts that you had been dreaming about suddenly appeared in your living room.

I have had every cheesy, random birthday party you never thought of. I had the "spy" birthday party, the "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" party and the "superstar" birthday parry, complete with karaoke and a recorded cooking show starring me and a few other buck-toothed friends.

And then you turn 24. It's isn't a milestone year of any kind, and quite frankly, you don't care about becoming one year older. You wonder if anyone else really does either, because how ridiculous is it to expect a celebration for yourself right in the middle of a hectic week? It's just not right. And it's not like I'm going to put off my birthday until the weekend because I'm throwing myself a bangin' party. Like I said, is this really necessary?

Despite the fact that birthdays are not necessary, and no one really has time for these things, the people in my life readjust their priority list to accommodate me on the day I took my first real breath and started my journey in this thing called life. How incredibly kind of us to celebrate each other for simply being alive. Now that I am older, I see birthdays as yet another holiday of gratitude. And this is why my 24th birthday was so perfect for me.

May 7th was a rainy day. I love rain. I think that was my present from God. At 12:05 a.m. I received a text from my mother-in-law who was the first person to remember me on my birthday. She called again before 7 a.m. Right after I thanked her for being so sweet to me, Dalton's Uncle Blake called from a cornfield in Idaho while he was riding on a tractor. His endearing twang and the simple fact that he took the time to call me that morning made my day, and it was still early. I arrived to work before my coworkers to get a head start that day, but I was greeted 20 minutes after my arrival with a beautiful vase of flowers with balloons and a few cards. It was a busy week at work preparing for projects and events, but my coworkers still set their loads aside for more than an hour to take me to a delicious Thai restaurant, my favorite. My birthday could have stopped here and I would have been thrilled. Balloons? Curry? Happy birthday wishes from a tractor? I couldn't want anything else.

And then there is the Facebook factor, which is overwhelming to say the least. I am tempted to remove my birthday from all social media sites so that people from my past and present don't feel the need to type "happy birthday." A hundred "happy birthday" messages later from grade school friends, teammates, college classmates, church leaders, and so on, I had thought about each of the people who decided to send me a message on that day. I thought about what they meant to me at whatever stage of my life we were connected, and I was so full of love! Sure, typing a few words and hitting "enter" only takes seconds, but no one had to do it, yet they did anyway. I loved each simple message.

A few hours later, Dalton walked through the doors with unwrapped shoebox as I cleaned the house to keep my myself occupied. I hadn't been expecting anything from him until the weekend because he has busy days with his internship, not to mention having to drive to and from Ogden. When I saw the shoebox, I knew exactly what he had been up to. Remember how I told you about my irreplaceable black pumps? Well, he found a pair that is almost identical. I was able to drop my tattered pair in the garbage on top of banana peels and wilted lettuce. Inside the shoebox there was a shirt that Dalton picked out from Bohme--one of my favorite stores--and it had Catherine written all over it. We must live together or something. The last thing in the box was a letter he wrote listing some of the things he loves about me. He knows nothing means more to me than the written word, especially when its in his ALL CAPS handwriting. The only thing that would have made it better was if he had done it on graphing paper like he did with the letter he had me read before he proposed. When something is written, it suddenly becomes more real to me. It's because sound disintegrates. Ink stays.


It all ended with Dalton taking me to Mountain West Burrito. Nothing finishes the day off quite like a heaping cup of guacamole. Like I said, the guy knows me. I was perfectly content to come home afterward and watch Man vs. Wild until midnight. It's always important to stay on top of your game as far as wilderness survival goes. There is a chance that I will need to bite a live frog's head off in order to stay alive, so watching this show was a gift to myself.

Now that I am terribly old (let's be honest, I'm a child), this birthday meant something different to me than the 23 before it. As life gets busier and we struggle to make time for our relationships, I was so grateful to have so many reach out to me on a day that is really just a day. I now understand, though, that birthdays are not about celebrating getting older. They are about celebrating life, celebrating that you and I are here right now in this miraculous, complicated world. And I'm willing to celebrate anything if guacamole is present.