Birthday

Four years ago on my birthday I had a couple girls over to watch a movie after work. They didn't know it was my birthday until my brother came home and gave me some barbecue sauce. I was okay with that; I didn't need them to know. Now I hardly even remember who they were. Contrast with this year: I had two birthday parties and everyone knew it was my birthday because I kept talking about it. "It's my birthday! It's my birthday! It's my birthday!" I wonder why I needed so much more attention this year... It was nice, though, to have friends who were eager to celebrate with me. In the future when I look back on this birthday I won't need to wonder what the names of my birthday companions were and whatever happened to them.

My birthday was good. I worked. Last year I was off for my birthday and it was so stressful and miserable to try to figure out what to do that I thought it would be better to just work this year. At least then I knew I would be surrounded by people and occupied. Plus, I think that to some degree it was a choice to spend my birthday with my coworkers. They are an important community to me. One work friend made me pies for my birthday which I got to share with other coworkers I'm fond of on break, and that was joyful for me. "Want some pie? It's my birthday!" It really made my day. Oh, and another guy sang me a depressing happy birthday song really loudly on my last break, and I loved that attention.

After work I had plans with two friends - I just didn't know what they were. I only knew I needed to come home after work. I wasn't sure what to expect or how high to let my hopes rise, but we had a good night. They looked back on my list of parties I hoped to host when I moved here for something I hadn't done yet, and we had a knitting party. After we had cake we put on a movie and we knitted. And there were even knitting goody bags, full of knitting notions. I was really touched by the thought they put in to what they planned.

There were other friends I wanted to celebrate my birthday with too, so I decided to have a little birthday party on another day - a Chocolate Fountain Birthday Party (another from my list). That was a lot of fun. It was a chance for me to get together with my best friends from different circles of my life - Work, Recent School, Past School, and a few Unconnecteds - and to give them a chance to get to know each other so they can put a face with a name when I talk about them. And we ate a lot of fruit and other stuff dipped in chocolate. Mmmmm. My favorite was the cream puffs. It was a good night.