The BlackberryJuniper Philosophy of Birthdays

It’s my birthday soon.  I like birthdays.  None of this getting older, feeling miserable, what haven’t I achieved yet bollox for me.  Which is surprising I know, given my usual level of negativity!

But I think birthdays are brilliant.  You don’t have to have a party if you don’t want one – or any of the traditional trappings if you don’t like them.

No!  It’s International You Day.  For this one day (or any day close to it you can hold at least partially free for yourself if you have to work that day), you do things you like, for yourself.  With the company you would like, or none.

The idea is: it’s the one day a year that is entirely yours, entirely about you and how you would like it spent.  No one tells you how you’ll spend it, and if they do, you’ll calmly and quietly tell them you’ve already made plans if you don’t like their well-meaning idea.  (People often project onto others what they’d like for themselves, without realising; or else what you would have liked – but 5 or 10 years ago, your tastes having moved along now and them not having noticed.)  If they argue with you, they aren’t really respecting the International YOUness of the day.  They get to be bossy on their International THEM day, not yours.  See?

Obviously, you aren’t going to sabotage your own nice day with wishing things that can’t be so, like:

(a)   wanting to be with a partner, friend, or set of friends you don’t have any more

(b)   wanting it to be a replica of an occasion in the past: stupid and impossible and doomed to disappointment, sadly

(c)   wanting to do something you really truly can’t afford, or could – but only if you go into quite a bit of debt (e.g. I want to go shopping for the day in New York!  I want to go to Dublin and drink in a special pub I saw in a film/ read in a novel!  I want to go on the Orient Express!  Go to Russia to see the Bolshoi Ballet in situ!)

Etc etc etc.  Whoa there, horsey!  Calm down!

For the day to work nicely and feel satisfying, you have to balance something you’d like to do, the company (or not) to do it with, and a reasonable budget.  Some years I was not well off, and my treat, because I am fortunate enough to have a mid (proper) summer birthday, was to go and have a picnic in Hyde Park/ Kensington Gardens with aka Laughing Girl, Troubadour and Fry.  This was such a cool treat I ended up doing it about 4 years in a row.  Not too expensive: some food made, some bought.  And no expectation that each year would “be as good as last year”.  Just the same location because it was a nice sunny grassy warm place, good for people watching and not too noisy. 

Fry was young at this time, so each year was different for this reason alone – he was a totally different little person each time, and I could more readily see the development and differences because of being in the same place each year, for just this one occasion.  Likewise, my relationships with Troubadour and Laughing Girl changed and flowed, so the conversations were never the same twice.  Or the weather – one year we got rained off just as we had lovingly set out all the little dishes of bits and pieces to admire them; that was both funny and bloody annoying…)

This year I’m doing something more low key still, in tune with my more or less skintness and social isolation.

Nothing is happening on the actual birthday, which falls on a Wednesday (except I have to take Fluffhead to both the doctors and then a PTA thing at his soon to be nursery; so that isn’t my day at all).  But on the Saturday, Mum will visit and we are going out to a neighbouring town for a morning of charity shop perusal.  There are about 10 charity shops in the main street where we’re going – joy!  I never get a chance to go in them, ordinarily.  I also never really get a chance to hang out with mum, because when she visits it’s always to help me out with Fluffhead, these days.

So we will hang out, and spend a tiny amount of money buying stuffage in charity shops.  I’m a wicked good charity shop shopper.  I find excellent clothes and books and DVDs.

The secret is simple: you can go in there wanting a certain thing all you like, but don’t be too specific as it leads you to be blind to what is actually present – see what is there and if you need or like any of that…Only be terribly specific if its vital that you have a winter coat or something; in which case, be prepared that you may not get what you wanted because of your very specific requirements.

I just realised I have outlined a very good General Philosophy of Actual Real Life.  Huh.  Don’t be too caught up being specific with what you want or you’ll blindly and single mindedly miss what’s actually going on around you, which you might also have liked.  (It’s that ‘life is what happens while you’re busy making plans’ thing.  And the thing about the journey being important, not just the destination.  Doesn’t apply to all situations, but to quite a large number.)  Amazingly, considering I apply this with perfection to charity shop shopping – a naturally wilful, disorderly and stockwise unpredictable environment – JUST LIKE LIFE – I cannot seem to apply it to my Actual Real Life at all.  More huh.  You try!  Do better than me!

Anyway.  Then we’ll go to a local bakers and have a cappuccino and a bun or something.  And a chat.  Be together.

When we come back, mum’ll have Fluffhead for a bit and Stanley and I will go out for a nice walk or something, or to get ice cream and cookies.  (I’m on a diet, as usual for this time of year: hello Weight Watchers Online, your reliable summer income has returned once again! – but no diet this day.)

That’s it.  We’ve hardly any money, but I get to hang out with 2 really important people to me (no Fry this year, he’s working this day), and talk uninterrupted.  And I get a little unpredictable shopping (aka treasure hunting).

Its enough, it’s grand, it’s good.  It marks the day out as special and different, and it causes no financial stress or complicated logistical nightmare.  I’m pretty introverted, so it also appeals to my preference for one on ones, as opposed to Big Groupy (Confusing Headache Making) Things.

See?  And you should (yes: I boss you today, in the manner of opinionated bloggers worldwide!) do what you like with YOUR birthday too.

Go on wargames, go bird watching, go on a spa day, spend the day making muffins – or in bed, resting if you’re exhausted.  I am going to make some Sunshine Muffins I saw on a Ceebeebies prog, and have pro-pointed up to make all Weight Watcher friendly, just for the hell of it.  I like baking easy things; it’ll make me feel happy.

Do something All For You, that makes you feel happy, peaceful, buzzed.

Be quiet if you’re always subjected to noise.  Or vice versa (yikes).

Go out feeling pretty and glittery and glossy if you feel you are always frumpy, mumsy or worky (ok, I’m still channelling myself here).

Read, alone in the garden listening to birdsong, if you want no fuss from others.  But make a nice fuss for yourself.

Your birthday belongs to you.  In the present, now.  It’s not a symbol or reminder of anything in the past or pressures in the future.  (Special Circumstances: If something very bad happened near your birthday in the past – and I know one friend for whom this is so and it ruins her birthday every year – make like the Queen: declare a different date, and make it 5 months away.  Have your birthday when you’d like it to be, when you can enjoy it.  Why the hell not??  Take your day back.)

Your birthday is Out Of Time.  It’s like a Solstice: a marker of balance.  You are poised between last year and the year to come.  You can hope, dream and plan (or regret); but don’t let it rob you of the one day that is All Yours.

All Yours.  A present moment.

One day in the whole year.  You can spare one day, for you.

Do something that makes you Happy.