On birthdays, both happy and not
I celebrated my birthday this past Saturday. The day marked the beginning of my 33d year on this earth, and it didn't depress me a bit. There have been times when I have found June 26 to be a day more appropriately devoted to mourning than celebration, but this year I felt content about my life and excited about the future.
In my childhood and adolescence, my birthday actually marked the passage of significant life events, mainly the graduation from one level of schooling to the next. Since my birthday fell during summer vacation, it always signified to me that one chapter of my life had closed while another was about to begin. That changed during my third (of seven) year of undergraduate study. At the age of 20, I could not imagine my life going anywhere good, or really anywhere at all. Four difficult years of college had brought me no closer to earning a degree than two good years would have (due to a few school transfers, a change of major, a slew of bad grades, and some personal difficulties). I had been working at low-paying manual labor jobs. I had one friend who lived a thousand miles away (2,500 km, I think) but none where I lived. I felt like I had no real home, having moved too many times to grow roots. You know the uncertain man James mentions whose doubts cause him to be tossed about like foam on the waves? That was me. At that point in my life, a birthday served only to remind me that my previous year had been as stagnant as a land-locked, algae-filled swamp, and that the next year held little promise of anything better.
I remember one particular birthday—my 23d, I think—when the future Mrs. Happy took me to a Cajun restaurant for my birthday. At that time, it had not occurred to me that she would make an amazing wife even though I already loved her ("as a friend," I insisted even to myself) more than I had ever loved anyone. She beamed for the entire evening, such was her joy for life and for me. The sight of her almost sufficed to enliven my pathetic existence, and even though I appreciated her efforts I was too caught up in my own perceived misery to enjoy the attention. The cycle of yearly stagnation and birthday depression repeated itself for five years.
If I remember correctly, 1997 (No. 25) was the first happy birthday of my adult life. My Happy Best Friend had earned a Bachelor's degree, and I would received mine in December of that year. We held hands on the day of her graduation, sort of coming to a mutual realization of a love deeper than friendship. I still had no ideas about a career or life after college, but I had grown enough in faith to trust the future to God. Since then, I have made a conscious effort to progress in life every year so that the arrival of my birthday would mark a sort of milestone the way it did in my childhood, only better. I still experience doldrums, of course, but one of the joys of my marriage is that I have someone to help me out of the stagnant times. I also have the privilege of helping her out of her own funks when they occur. It's true what the book of Ecclesiastes says: "Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up! Again, if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone?" I thank God for her. She makes my birthdays happier than ever.
