My Birthday: I'm Going to Start Enjoying It

I never really enjoyed my birthday. And this has nothing to do with age or aging; I have felt this way most of my life. It just always seems that for days or even weeks before a birthday, friends and family will say things like "your birthday's coming up, are you doing anything special?" or "what do you want to do on your special day?" I would then get depressed on my birthday because it never seemed to be as special as it was supposed to be (with a few exceptions).

I recently came across The American Cancer Society's new campaign "Creating a world with more birthdays" and realized that I should completely change the way I look at them. I doesn't matter what I do that day. I matters that I am still alive and well and able to celebrate another birthday. Everything else is just the icing on the cake (pun intended).

I lost my mother to cancer, seven years ago, when she was only 73. The older I get, the younger 73 sounds. She should have had so many more birthdays and I think she would have been happy not doing anything "special" on them. My father just passed away last year, suddenly, at 82. He had still seemed so young and everyone thought he's be celebrating at least a few more birthdays. The scary thing is that you never know which birthday will be your last so celebrate each one to its fullest.

I also realize that it is silly to only apply this type of thinking to birthdays. I complain about aging and I do sweat the small stuff. I am going to try to now go by the thinking that you shouldn't be unhappy about getting older because it is better than the alternative. I have lost more than a few friends to cancer during the past decade and I'm sure they would agree with that statement.

So on my next birthday, I don't care what I do, who I see or where I go. I am just going to celebrate another year of life.

Original 50-something Moms Blog Post by Jennifer Wagner who also writes at the New York Examiner and Connect with your Teens through Pop Culture and Technology