bday

Issue #44

Last Update March 2, 2006

National Post Birthday Blues by Gert Innsry Birthdays are wonderful. For weeks leading up to the natal day there is anticipation. Will I get good presents? Will friends and well-wishers call to congratulate me? Will I go somewhere really nice to celebrate? The birthday itself is an orgy of self indulgence. I don't have to do X, it's my birthday. I'm entitled to an extra portion of Y, it's my birthday. One's spouse dances around making sure that nothing disturbs the pleasure of the day, that all is as perfect as can be for the birthday boy or girl. No wonder, then, that the day after a birthday is a terrible letdown. I'm no longer special, nobody is cutting me any extra slack, everything's back to normal. There should be some way of letting the birthday person down easy.

Perhaps birthdays should be celebrated for two days, rather than one. (Jewish holidays follow this pattern, out of medieval concern that the wrong day will be chosen and commandments will be broken.) A second day of the birthday (Tveiten tug yontif) would spread the birthday privileges and allow even the birthday person to become a little tired of it all.

Perhaps an additional reason for celebration could be found at or near the birth date. For men (Jewish men, anyway), a second special day could be celebrated eight days after the birthday. "Happy Brithday", well wishers would cry joyfully. No equivalent for women comes immediately to mind.

Major birthdays, in which the age ends in a zero or a five, particularly those which mark a milestone in the aging process, often get acknowledged with major parties. This in itself stretches out the birthday season, often to an unendurable degree. By the time the party is over, both the birthday person and all of his or her friends and relations are heartily sick of the whole thing.

The best thing, for those who suffer most from pot birthday letdown, might be to look to the scientific community for an example. A number of decades ago, scientists all over the world participated in the International Geophysical Year, which actually was eighteen months long. Declaring an international geophysical birthday would pretty much solve the letdown problem.