I need to change my relationship with my birthdays. I love people that love their birthdays. I am not one of these people. This started way, way back. I think it has to do with expectations and pressure. My parents always tried really hard (or at least they told me "we're trying really hard") to make my birthdays perfect. Birthdays are never perfect. Birthdays are when your best friend pukes tomato and cheese sandwiches all over you and the back of your mom's Volvo station wagon on the way to the roller rink. Birthdays are when you cry inconsolably over the comment someone made about your dead dog. Birthdays are when you get caught taking your boyfriend to your room and emerge with a patch of hickeys that would make a leech blush.
My husband and I also have a different "picture" of what a good birthday looks like. His is intimate. Maybe a golf outing with a few close friends. A great dinner and a concert/play/show. I enjoy these things as well, but not for my 40th birthday. I pretty much want everyone I've ever met at my 40th birthday. I want raucous partying. I want tequila shots. I want dancing. I want roasting. I want girl hugging and drunken expressions of love and affection.
I'm a big girl. I know I've got to take this birthday bull by the horns and ride it. I have 200 days. So many options. The problem is that my friends are spread out all over the country/world and I'm not expecting anyone to make a trip anywhere just for my birthday. So I'm thinking the mountain needs to go to Mohammed. A party here, a party there. I'm also considering trips - I want to learn to surf so Costa Rica has been discussed. I would also like to do something more reflective (after the partying of course) like a yoga retreat. You only turn 40 once right?
If anyone out there has had the best birthday ever, let me know! I'm open to suggestion and ideas.
