Throughout everyone’s lifetime, there is always an annual celebration to recognize the day you were brought into this world. We all started celebrating birthdays at a young age, and nine times out of ten, this day resulted in having birthday parties. These parties consisted of family members and a few classmates surrounding you as you blew out your candles, and meant you were going to get lots of gifts from those in attendance. In full transparency, it also just simply brought you joy to be showered in birthday wishes and love for an entire day straight, because who doesn’t enjoy being remembered and acknowledged? Somewhere on our journey of growing up, these parties eventually came to an end. Your birthday transitioned into being celebrated in a simpler way with less planning involved, less amount of gifts, and with less people surrounding you as you blew out your candles. I understand that once you pass the age of fifteen, birthdays may start to appear less exciting due to the lack of physical celebration. This is true when looking at it from the surface level, although that does not mean that your birthday is any less important. In fact, I’m convinced that your birthday becomes more meaningful as the years go on.
You may not find the thought of aging and growing up as something to be happy about. This thought is completely understandable, who wouldn’t wish to stay young forever? I am one year away from leaving my teenage dream behind, and truthfully, I’m not ready to close off that chapter- but it is inevitable. Even though I may not want to leave this time of my life, I cannot deny the fact that I am excited to see what career I end up with in my twenties, just how I’m excited to see what my thirties hold as well. I wonder if I’ll reach that goal of mine to earn an internship in L.A. or N.Y. my senior year of college, and if I do, I hope it’s New York. Will I end up pursuing my lifelong dream of becoming an attorney, or will I find myself falling in love with a different career path? In my very distant future, I wonder if I am going to end up marrying at the age of 28 and have two kids like I always planned. I also wonder if I will eventually get to live in the house of my dreams- the one with an all white interior, silver accents, and a view of a large city that can be seen perfectly through the floor-to-ceiling windows present in my living room. These are all things that I will not get to experience if I don’t age, therefore each year that passes is valuable to the bigger picture and is worth celebrating.
The true meaning behind birthdays goes way beyond the things you receive and the way it gets celebrated. Even though you may wake up and feel the exact same way you did the day before, and everybody else around you continues on with their daily schedules, that does not make it just an “ordinary day.” It is a chance for you to remember the day that a memorable event occurred, celebrate yourself and your current successes, and reflect upon how you are still alive to celebrate the day of your birth. In other words, your birthday is simply a celebration of your life. I am currently nineteen, but in reality, I am all the ages that have come before me. Each age consists of many different events and experiences that contribute to how much you have grown as a person each year. Your birthday serves as a way to honor everything that’s made you who you are, just how it is a way to welcome the years that follow.
When it comes to celebrating, just remember to celebrate in the way that you like. This could be staying in and spending time with yourself, or could be getting all of your friends together for a night downtown. If you unfortunately have to work or take care of other responsibilities, find the good in them and remind yourself that no matter what, that day is still yours and it is still special. Even so, a dinner after a long day of work with the person(s) of your choice is still valid. However you choose to celebrate and regardless of what you do, remind yourself that this specific day holds much significance and should be honored by you. Live in the moment, appreciate all that you are in present time, and give thanks for all of the blessings you have received thus far. For my 19th birthday, I will honor everything that has happened in this past year, and continue to work towards having something to celebrate in my future birthdays. Along with this, I will go into the next 365 days with the ambition to make my last teenage year the best one yet. Once the years have piled up and once I reflect back on my life at an old age, I hope I am able to say that each year was memorable, and was definitely worth celebrating each May 6th since 2003.