Happy Birthday to me.  :)  Today I'd like to talk about birthday's past.  Last month we celebrated my son's birthday and he said to me this was his best birthday ever which meant the world to me as a father. I got to thinking... Best birthday's ever...

So now it is my birthday and I think about how a birthday should feel on that day.  I do have birthday's that stick out.  There was one when I was in second grade that sticks out.  I had so many children at my home. 

There was one when I was in the 7th graded and I had a girlfriend named Ann.  She and I snuck off to my bedroom to kiss. I recall when I was just out of high school and my best friend Keith and a couple other good friends Andrew and Mike came over.   I have pictures of us all acting silly. 

I recall the next year I had a hayride for my birthday up in Hockessin at a farm.  I recall how a had about 20 of my friends in cars caravanning our way trying not to let each other get caught at lights behind us as we made our way there.  Once there we had two wagons of partiers and we often jumped out of our wagons to scare or throw hay at each other in the dark.   My friend Keith played guitar for us all.  I remember a great bonfire and many friends just sitting and cuddling with girlfriends, chatting about life, our dreams and things that seem so simple to me now.  Birthday's like that you are glad to remember. 

I remember my 25th birthday standing in my mothers kitchen with my best friend Keith.  We had not started our band yet.  We were still only toying with the idea and at the time we still had not really made the most of our lives.  I was 25 and he said to me, "Dude, just think... you only have five more years to be in your twenties."  And I was all over that thought.  I was thinking about that all that day.  I'm half done!  I won't be in my twenties anymore!  I think that was the day my mortality hit me.

I remember my first son's mother Tara taking me to Baltimore Inner Harbor one year.   I was 28 at the time.  It was an Indian Summer day.  The temperature was a balmy 74 degrees on a November day in Baltimore.  

I remember the one and only time my ex-wife did something nice for me.  She threw me an surprise party on my 35th birthday.  I think it was in response to me throwing her parties every year for her birthday.    I never asked her about it, who would?  I was just glad to finally have her do something special for me on my birthday.  After all, I was married.  She was the one person that was to love me and show me I was cared for.   So on that day, I felt special.  On that birthday I felt like my life was complete.  I had a loving wife, I had a son I was and am proud of and I had friends in my home that I had bought and I was someone that could be proud my life didn't amount to anything less.   That was a great birthday too.

Birthday's come and go.  Some you remember.  Some you don't.   Think about it.  What birthdays in your life stand out?  Which or how many do you remember?    Were more of your birthday's sad, or happy?  I recall last year my birthday was smack in the middle of my divorce and I was forcibly separated from my ex-wife. I sat at a dinner out and cried to myself whenever people turned away.  Sadly I may remember that birthday always for what it was not.  Do you even care about your birthday?  Some us don't want to think about them, and that doesn't even bring up the issue of how as we get older we don't want to celebrate getting older! 

For now... Happy Birthday to me.  My son made me breakfast in bed and I'm loved.  I'll have friends and family over today and I'll have everyone around me that means the world to me.  I will have a happy birthday this year. ;)