Having Your Cake... And Eating It Too

October is a big birthday month for several friends and family members. “Several” meaning like 20 people I know are celebrating their birthdays. From friends to family, it seems everyone’s parents got in the groove while ringing in the New Year. What strikes me about celebrating a birthday is that as you get older, the more they begin to well, inevitably suck.

Baby Birthdays are Simply The Best

For example, I know a baby that just turned 1—a great age for a birthday in my opinion. You’re fed cake, you’re dressed in your finest and people think it’s cute when the cake gets all over your face. At the age of 1 you are just happy that someone cared enough to change your diaper. Life is pretty good.

Fast forward to the age of say, 11, and it’s not cool to admit you have a birthday coming up but you think about it, remind your mom about it and learn how to plan a party. Gone are the days of diapers and cake replaced with the angst of learning how to send out e-vites (no kid gets paper invites anymore apparently) and trying to persuade your mother into having 14 of your “closest” friends over for a sleep over and of course, cake. Details don’t matter—as in who will actually be invited—just invite all the girls in your class and see who makes it through the night without wanting to go home. Oh—and the birthday invite is an equal-opportunity invite: you have to invite all the girls whether you like everyone or not. Because that’s what you just do.

Pre-Adolescent Party Planning Starts

When you get to the age of 15 you just want to hang with the buddies you see each and every day. That usually totals a pack of say, 4-6 pre-adolescents who frankly are just looking to get into some kind of trouble. Cutting the cake is usually relegated to after a family dinner as the parents worry about what type of birthday to throw for their 15 year-old who just wants to learn how to drive already. He/She starts hinting at getting a car—like “so-and-so” who’s a Junior at their school and who frankly, isn’t responsible enough to drive one. Parents start to get anxious about properly teaching their children to drive wondering if everyone else thinks the same thing about their child (quietly admitting to themselves that the extra driver would help with the endless amount of car pooling they currently have to do…).

Twenty-One …or Bust

When you approach the age of twenty one, the birthday celebration peaks. The anxiety of having to get into those college bars with your older brother/sister’s fake I.D. is finally over and finally you can let loose and drink all you want…any time you want.

In fact, you actually revert to the age of 1 during the big night out—wear that funny hat, dirty-up your face with either cake (if your friends had the foresight to buy you one) or more likely, the whipped topping of your 10th shot as you attempt to make it to 21. Wearing a diaper during these exploits may not be a bad idea because inevitably, after 10 or 12 shots (no matter who you are) at one point in the night, you’ll lose all control of your bowels.

After the big 2-1, birthday celebrations start to spiral downhill. Planning takes on a whole new level of significance and may take weeks. Long gone are the days where you can have 14 of your closest friends over for a sleep over, or party like a rock star at the age of 21, because in fact in your mind, you are one.

Here Comes the Reality Check

As you get older (post-twenty-five or so), birthdays take on a whole different significance. In fact, no matter who you talk to, they begin to well … suck.
Organizing the event becomes a logistical nightmare as you try to plan a night out at a restaurant no one has tried only to find out that their menu does not comply with the plethora of dietary restrictions your group of friends may (or frankly, may not…) have.

You worry how many people can even swing by for a drink to help you celebrate. Half the time they do for an hour or so, and the other half they want to “re-schedule” for next week (like that you really want to celebrate your birthday on their schedule instead of, you know, the day you were born). And without fail, you start to take stock in your life: You worry about getting married if your single, having kids if you don’t have them and how badly that Botox shot could possibly hurt and more importantly, why you’ve waited so long to make the appointment.

Bring On the Diaper

Yes, my friends, from here on out—birthdays go downhill in a death-like spiral until about the age of say, eighty. That’s when you’re just happy to be alive. I hope by the ripe old age of eighty, I’ve learned how to appreciate the life God has given me and more importantly, how to have my cake and it too (regardless of whether I’m sitting in a diaper or not).