Throughout childhood we become conditioned to celebrate the passage of another year and wish people a happy birthday. A quick perusal of the Internet credits the Egyptians with the origin of the practice apparently in reference to a Pharaoh’s birthday. As a child, birthdays were a special occasion, something which to look forward to with excitement and anticipation. It was a time of favorite foods, cake, ice cream, games, and, of course, gifts. Not having a source of income, birthdays were one of the few occasions to obtain the things one wanted. Beginning with the first birthday and lasting into the early teen years, birthdays were accompanied by a party, either at home, a park, bowling alley, or restaurant. Happy birthday was sung, a wish was made, and candles were blown out - a sequence that signaled the finale of the birthday celebration.
The teen years saw less of the childish fanfare, decorations, and party hats, but still followed the traditional script. Gifts were still given, the song was sung, cake and ice cream were served while a wish remained momentarily suspended in the fleeting candle smoke. And so the process repeated year after year, decade by decade. Milestone birthdays were cause for additional celebration. Thirteen marked the end of childhood as it were and the entry into the teenager club. Sixteen and eighteen were celebrated with vigor as they marked the age of driving and legal adulthood respectively. Twenty-one ushered in the right to consume alcohol, and twenty-five saw a decrease in auto insurance rates - the last age of associated benefit. From that point forward, only the “round” decades, those ending in zero were celebrated. Thirty was quickly followed by forty and subsequently fifty, the “over the hill” birthday.
I’m not really sure when, but at some point birthdays were not something to celebrate. In reality, they’re a marker and reminder of impending death. It’s ironic how we celebrate birth and the arrival of new life when in reality we’re all dying from the day we’re born. Sure, we grow and develop as infants, toddlers, and teenagers, reaching maturity in our young adult years. However, the passage of time and celebration of the day we were born is in fact a stark reminder that we are getting closer to death. Given the average lifespan is seventy-six (call it eighty for a round number), by the time a person reaches forty, his life is half over. Optimistically, with good health, proper diet, exercise, and modern medicine, by age fifty life is definitely at the halfway point. Every subsequent year is just another reminder of fewer and fewer days on the calendar.
I lied to myself when I turned forty and told myself I would make it to at least eighty. A runner, physically active, and somewhat conscientious of the food I ate, I easily accepted that idea. Forty-five saw the same lie, perhaps only a little bigger, but nevertheless just as believable. At fifty, though, well, it wasn’t as easy to lie to myself. Somewhere between forty-five and fifty the truth started coming into focus. I pushed it aside and embraced agnosticism for all it was worth. After all, ignorance is bliss, right? With my head down, I shunned the annual celebration of my life, preferring instead to ignore the day and skip the hoopla. Not because I was on the downward half of the mountain that was my life. No. I avoided my birthday because it was a reminder of another year gone, three-hundred-and-sixty-five days passed without anything to show for the elapsed time.
There comes a time in life when a person realizes that not only is yesterday gone, but so is the opportunity it represented. Life is the greatest teacher, offering lessons that will forever endure in history. The soap opera Days of Our Lives featured the opening voiceover “like sands through the hour glass, so are the days of our lives.” How very true! For me, the passage of time, particularly my birthday, is a stark reminder that not only is my life half over, but that it is replete with failure. Furthermore, with less time ahead of me than behind me, there is less opportunity to make amends or achieve the dreams of youth. The sands at the bottom of my hourglass serve as a testament to the failure that is my life, something that certainly is not worth celebrating on an annual basis.
Although I failed out of college, I was still relatively young with many years remaining with which to atone for my lack of academic success. Given my current academic level, some might say I have done so. However, the tattoo of failure does not wash away so easily. Forever etched in my mind are the many years between that failure and subsequent success and even overachievement (perhaps done subliminally to compensate for all those years wandering in the dessert of failure). One does not replace the other, no matter how grandiose it may be. The memory of failure may fade over time, but it never goes away. It remains a scar on the memory forever.
When I initially entered the Navy, I hadn’t planned to make it a career. But I quickly found my niche. In my thirties with volumes of pages left on my life’s calendar, the Navy was my home. At least it was for fourteen years. I’l spare you the details, but suffice it to say I was medically separated. No retirement ceremony, no shadow box, no luncheon, nada. Just a DD-214. Fourteen years of my life wasted. Had I remained for another six years, I likely would have advanced one or two more times. Who knows, I might have stayed beyond twenty years. This month marks thirty years since I entered the Navy on August 26, 1998. I could have retired with honor this year and lived off my pension. But that was not to be! Instead my naval career is just another failure added to the scrap heap of my life.
Back to education. In high school, I was filled with delusions of grandeur and wanted to attend Harvard University. I had the grades just not the SAT scores. Standardized tests were never my thing. Fast forward a few decades, and not only have I completed my bachelor’s degree, but I also have a master’s and doctoral degree to boot. Don’t be impressed, though, because they haven’t been the bastions of success they were promised to be. In fact, I have little to show for the student loan debt incurred obtaining my master’s. The pursuit of education has resulted in little success, at least none that I can measure. My degrees, collecting dust in the attic and soon to be discarded, serve as tangible proof of frivolous academic endeavor. They haven’t lead to career success or advancement, nor have they ushered in any amount of personal satisfaction. They are hollow victories, evidence of wasted time, and a testament to failure.
Perhaps my greatest failure, though, was as a father, although my shortcomings as a husband run a close second. During pregnancy and the infant stage, a man envisions his future in relation to his children (I have twins). He contemplates their future and his role in it and what kind of father he wants to be. Taking a cue from friends who’ve previously covered the territory, a father desires to give his children a better life than he had and to avoid the mistakes his parents made. Let’s face it, no matter how terrific our parents were, we can all look back and identify something we said we’d do differently when we had kids. Well, now is our opportunity. I was no different. Like many expecting fathers, I suppose, I convinced myself that the life I wanted to give my children was attainable. Moreover, I naively believed I could be the perfect dad, or just a little bit better than mine. (My father was wonderful. His only flaw is that he was human.) As much I wanted to be the perfect dad, I wasn’t. Life has a funny way of intervening and disrupting things. That part is easier to accept than my personal flaws.
I don’t recall being an angry person in my younger years. Maybe I was and didn’t know it. Oh, I had a temper, but I’ve got Irish blood in my veins. Still, I never imagined I could get so angry, especially at my own children. But I did. Oh, I don’t blame them. I’m not really sure why I ever lost my temper the many times I did. My father only got angry on a few occasions that I recall. He was even-tempered and mild mannered for the most part. Even at his worst, he couldn’t hold a match to my ire. It was almost as if I were good at being angry, a talent that was often unrealized until those rare moments when it sprung free from the cage. Too many times I unleashed my umbrage, knowingly taking aim at my daughters. Sure, some anger is rightly deserved sometimes. However, an abundance of rage flowed too freely during those times when only a rebuke was necessary. Words were uttered in anger, unable to be retracted, taken back, and silenced. Their damage can never be repaired. Such is the power of the tongue. James said, “But no man came tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil full of poison” (Jame 3: 8, NKJV). And mine certainly is.
The promise of happiness that fatherhood dangled in front of me during the early years transformed into the most significant failure of my life. Add to that the many little failures along life’s journey and there is little reason to celebrate the passage of another year or acknowledge my prolonged existence. My birthday serves as a bitter reminder of a failed life, one that thankfully has fewer and fewer years remaining.
Happy birthday? I think not!
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