Birthdays

Today is my birthday.

I find that I don't remember my birthdays very much, at least not for the reasons you would think. I was talking to Lauren about this; how I seem to remember the bad birthdays better than the good ones. She thought it was because we have such high expectations for our birthdays, that they become very hard to live up to. I think this is the case for me, so I decided to write this blog about the birthdays I do remember.

The first birthday I remember was when I turned 13 - all my birthdays before that year are made up of pictures, not real memories. My family had moved to the U.S. nine months prior to my 13th, and we were in the process of moving from Illinois to Maryland. On my birthday, we were visiting Maryland (I don't think we had moved yet). I remember being in a food court, and getting ice cream, or something. Nothing really stands out, except that I'm taken back every time I go into that food court, to my 13th birthday.

The next birthday I vaguely remember was when I was 18. I actually don't remember the specifics of the day, but I do remember that it was the day before my high school graduation. No one seemed to care that it was my birthday; it was all about graduation.

From birthdays 23 to 25, I happened to be in other countries.

I was in Guatemala when I turned 23, and spent the day getting from Tikal to Antigua, flying into Guatemala City, and then bussing to Antigua. I remember calling my parents at a phone, and then running through the rainy summer night, because I didn't have an umbrella.

My 24th birthday was spent in Barcelona. I remember waking up early, going to the empty beach, climbing onto a lifeguard tower and looking into the beautiful blue Mediterranean Sea. I took a picture, but it didn't come out. This was back in the days of film cameras and it was the last shot on the roll, and didn't make it. That moment, of me standing on the tower is the favorite birthday memory I have. It was just me, the beach, and the sea. I can still see it and smell it, when I close my eyes.

That evening, I was involved with an altercation with pick pockets - they got nothing from me, and I almost got something from them - but that's another story for another day.

My 25th birthday was in Vancouver. I was taking an ESL certification class. My class went out to dinner for the event, and during dinner a classmate some very racist and sexist remarks. This resulted in the rest of us attacking him, and him dropping out of the class because he felt uncomfortable. I don't know if that was really a bad memory, because he was a jerk.

On my 28th birthday, I decided to fast for 24 hours, midnight to midnight. I did it, I got a migraine, I remember that birthday well.

On my birthday last year, when I turned 32, I was looking forward to the rare Saturday birthday, until I saw the MBA class schedule for that term - I would have a class from 9-1 on my birthday. Things got worse when I saw the syllabus for the class - we would have an exam on that day. As it turned out, after the exam, the professor wanted our group to meet with him for a group project. This resulted in a 45 minute meeting and making about 2000 copies after that, at a location 10 miles away from class. I ended up being involved in class stuff from 9 to almost 3.

So this year, I've made it a plan to do as little as possible. I figure if I have no expectations, maybe I'll not have anything negative remember about the day. I'd rather have a birthday I don't remember than one I remember for the wrong reasons.