Happy Birthday to Me...

Birthdays are wonderful. The best part about them is they come once a year and changes your life like no other day. This is one day when you can live in the past, present and future all at the same time. Once in a year you know you should be happy not because you really see anything different that day from all the other days but because all your near and dear one's want to make you feel special that day.

There was a time when birthdays used to be fun. Birthdays meant parties, getting gifts and having a blast for one day when you are the centre point of all the attention. Remember when you cut the cake how good you felt, you just knew that the first piece of cake had to be for your mom, your dad and your siblings. Can you recall just when exactly and more importantly why did that feeling change to one of embarrassment for you?

Celebrating birthdays was not for you anymore. Maybe the priorities in your life had changed. Maybe you didn't want that attention that people give to you on your birthdays. The phone calls from all the friends and relatives started annoying you. Your mindset and attitude changed a lot from when you were a child who had no ideas about the ways of the world. All that you wanted on your birthday was to be left alone, no friends, no parties, no gifts, no nonsense.

Now you'd rather not have your birthdays at all, forget about celebrating them. I called up one of my friends to wish him happy birthday ( I had been confirming the day from a lot of guys, since I am not too good with dates ). To my surprise that guy was sad about the fact that it was his birthday. I hate to say this but his pessimism rubbed off on me too. Instead of talking about how he was celebrating his birthday all we did was crib about the life we are leading and then discuss how we could get out of this shit.

I have been a victim of this too. I know how my friend must have been feeling that day. Its a really terrible feeling to have more so because its your birthday. You have to smile because your friends are smiling and because they want you to be happy, while inside you are hurting and getting irritated by all the attention that you are getting.

I have tried to reason this behavior a lot but could not find any answers. When you live a life where days come and go without you even realizing when the weekend arrives and when it whizzes past you having this one special day can be really tough on people. Maybe that's one justification to the kind of feeling people get on their birthdays.

The best thing to do would definitely be to be happy and keep a gentle smile on your face all the time just for the sake of your friends and family. There are only some days when you get their undivided attention and its always better to cut the hay while the sun shines.

My idea of a perfect birthday celebration would be to spend quality time with my friends or relatives even if I am super busy that day. I just wouldn't want to be alone that day. There would be many other days that you can choose to be sad on. For this one day I would ask all my friends to be happy just for the heck of it and have a good time. To all my friends I would plead not to overdo anything that you do to make your friend feel special.

I dont mind getting gifts though. I really appreciate the feelings behind them ;) .