Birthdays get less significant as you get older

This might be true. I'm not old, so I'm not certain.

Birthdays used to be wonderful days, where you celebrate you adding another 365.25 days into your life experience. Especially when you are below 10. Each year is a significant portion of your life. That's why birthdays as a kid were so important.

As you get older, you start to care less and less about this magical day that used to be so important. Probably because with each passing year the amount of time between each birthday lessens and becomes less significant, in your mind, time passes faster.

I don't know what mid-age crisis is. Probably world-weariness. I would guess at that age, people who suffer from that crisis would dread each birthday instead of welcoming it, for it signifies another year lost that could be used for "better" things.

My grandfather likes birthdays. He is nearly 80. He has enjoyed life, so he is prepared to pass away. Another year to him is nothing but more time spent enjoying existence. That is probably because he had a fulfilling life, despite all its difficulties (communism in China, scratching out a new living in Hong Kong, and so on). That would be what I want in old-age. Enjoying it while you can.

Do what I do. Only celebrate birthdays when they're at a power of two. They're all milestones, anyway:

• 2: Useful self-awareness.
• 4: Fully mobile and ready for action.
• 8: Old enough for unsupervised activity.
• 16: Even more unsupervised activity, and with Dad's car, yet.
• 32: A good time for the midlife crisis. Have you made your billion¹ yet?
• 64: Retirement, a year early. Shame about the billion, but you're got your IRA/RRSP right?
• 128: Let's face it, you'll never see it.

Note the beneficial effect of spacing them out further and further. Thus it dovetails nicely with DMan's idea.

^{1. Dollars, not burgers, kids.}

These past few birthdays have been a bit disappointing. Every year, I fancy thoughts of making this one better, which wouldn't be asking for much. The last three years I've been here, my birthday is commemorated by a gathering of the members of my very small, French Quarter based church, comprised of less than a dozen people, people at whose houses I've spent most of my social hours. My family and few friends are up North, in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and recently, Michigan.

Sweet as the church people are, they are neither close friends nor family. I only have one close friend here, and our big outing for her birthday this year was breakfast at Denny's. It's just hard to get jazzed for a birthday when you are unable to see how this year is any different than the last, even though I know a lot has changed.

Do not think that I am always this bummed out when I node. I have a small hope that this year, my birthday will be special, but I have yet no proof to back this up. I will be 25. I will have been out of my parents' house 9 years, out of college 4 years. I have had a lot of adventures in these passing years, part of which results in my feeling older than I really am. People will say I'm in the prime of my life, but even that is laughable. I think my prime was in college, when I was still blind to reality, when I still dreamt in color.

So what can I hope for that will make this birthday special? I would like to be near at least one person who is special to me, to go to wherever they are and have them celebrate my birthday for me. I don't have to get drunk or even leave the house. A cake and presents that are things I asked for or wanted would be all that I would need. Just good company. Not feeling like it was done because it was known that I didn't have anyone else to do it for me, that no one else knew me enough to pencil my birthday in on their wall calendar. To have a group of people do that for three years straight, as sweet a gesture as it is, is just pathetic.