Happy Birthday Self!

Today is my birthday.

When you're young you think that when you get older, you get more answers. Now that the number in the age prompt is higher today than it was yesterday, it seems like I only get more questions.

For example, why the hell are birthdays happy? I personally haven't had one since I was seven.

I mean, by the time people think that you can personally fend for yourself, they stop giving you anything on your birthday. Your birthday then becomes something you save up for so that your buddies can get sloshed on your behalf.

It's quite the karma event, actually.

First of all, you get great presents for the first decade and change of your life, and then you get to pay for all those wonderful presents that you got as a kid. Twelve years of in, the rest of your life out. What an exchange.

What if you had a bad childhood? Does that entitle you to 12 years of wonderful gifts later on in life? I don't think life works that way.

Now that I'm 26, this, I guess is supposed to be the year I start paying up for all those other people who never had a happy childhood, who never had a birthday cake, who don't know what it means to have a Happy Birthday. I never thought I could feel such happiness.

However, that could explain how you have to pay for your birthday parties far longer than other people have paid for yours.

Could it be that these greetings are so that you can appreciate people wishing you well? Is that what birthdays are for, to let you know that you're not such a loser, that some people still care for you? Doesn't that same principle apply to Easter, Valentine's Day, Christmas, and all the other life events that require a greeting card? So, what gives?

Let's say that it's just another card-giving occasion. What happens when the greetings become really superficial? Like if they come from officemates you love to hate? What if you work for the Postal Service? Does that entitle you to more heartfelt greetings? I don't think the world spins that way.

A friend says that people wish you happiness on your birthday so you don't think about how much older you've become and how much closer you get to the time you die. If you look at it that way, then your birthday is a really sh*tty day, probably the sh*ttiest one of the year, and birthday greetings are nothing but an exercise in denial. Is that the way the world spins? I hope to Christ not.

If you're anything like me, you don't expect to live much beyond 50. Bad habits like smoking, drugs, food, fear of exercise, and a sedentary lifestyle contribute to my prediction of early coronary heart failure. I mean, my ALgebra professor died before he hit 40, and I'm way fatter than he was at my age.

Should today, therefore, mark the onset of my half life crisis? I guess that puts me ahead of my peers. I'm already halfway through, while they've got a whole lifetime ahead of them (change not included). So, eat, drink, be fat, obese and merry, because these things put you ahead in life. Perhaps that's the way it's supposed to work.

Hahahaha. Happy Birthday to me. :)