I really enjoy PG activities, and GirlFriday Week is always chock full of them-- board games, karaoke, painting pottery (a super-fun outing organized by GirlWednesday when I turned 20), pizza and cake. Very sadly, I haven't had a GirlFriday Week since I moved away from my friends. I don't mind too much. My husband treats me very well. But I can't help but be reminded about how much I miss my friends every time I get a year older.
I love to hear from all of my old friends on my birthday, but it's not crucial to me. I don't evaluate someone's friendship based on whether and to what extent they remember and celebrate my birthday. Especially with the handy dandy Facebook reminder, it's not really an indication of someone's amount of care for you, or even their level of thoughtfulness and class. And sometimes it can even feel like people are remembering and contacting you sort of just for show. That doesn't mean they care about you more than your closest cousin who plum forgot.
It's nice to hear from folks, but people are busy. They have a lot of crap going on, and just because they don't call, email or send a gift does not mean they don't care about you. I think the most important thing is that you hear from your parents, and that the people who you hang out with regularly or work with do something sweet for you. And if you don't tell anyone it's your birthday, you can't get upset that they don't know it!
In school, I was on the young side for my grade. I always liked that. Even though I knew it didn't mean much, it felt good that I was accomplishing things slightly sooner than most. Well, I must have really liked how it felt, because I went on to accomplish a lot of things at ridiculously young ages. But now I'm in my late 20's and I'm losing most of that novelty. My peers have definitely caught up if not exceeded me, and now it's like, who cares that I hit milestones at young ages-- we all ended up hitting them eventually. In that sense, it's a little hard getting older, because I'm losing that "young and accomplished" feeling that was once so intense every time I blew out the candles.
Still, I don't mind getting older. Mostly because I'm so happy with where I am as a person. I'm sure it's dangerous to think even that. After all, life doesn't always go as planned, and I will probably reach birthdays at which everything is not so rosy. I haven't previously thought about birthdays so reflectively, as a time to be gracious and appreciative. But perhaps I should. From now on, in addition to arcade games and ice cream sundaes, GirlFriday Week will be about being thankful for everything in my life. It might not be perfect, but it's GirlFriday. And it's pretty fabulous.
P.S. Happy Birthday, BrotherFriday.
1 comment:
This is my favorite week of the year. And it's hard to celebrate it without you. But I try.
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