My Birthday

When I was young, I remember celebrating outside with a pinata and a big party in the back yard. There were more adults at the party than kids and now that I look back I think my birthday was an excuse for all the adults to get drunk. As I got older I grew to really dislike my birthday. My family never really ate together. We only did that on birthdays and holidays. There was always a fight. I was getting yelled at for something. I think my most memorable childhood birthday event was when my quiet grandfather got up from the table and yelled "Just leave the boy alone!" It was the first time I ever heard my grandfather yell at my father. I was scared to death because grandpa wasn't going to stay at the house forever. I never would tell my friends when my birthday was because there was something about it that I just didn't want to celebrate.

Fast forward to married life and when my ex wife would go out and buy clothes that I didn't like that were too expensive and I would get yelled at for not being appreciative. I never reallylooked forward to birthdays. Now, my birthday is shared with my brother in law. I sort of like it because it takes the attention off of me. Each year now, my mother likes to go over all the mistakes I have made in my life. I guess she means well, she doesn't want me to make the same mistakes again in the future.'

Today, I got an email from Tiara from Naked Thoughts. We email each other each day when I am at work, she is like my little sister and I am an overprotective brother. She said that I should go see what people are saying about me, because some of it wasn't very good and she was sorry to have to break the bad news.

When I saw the beautiful guestbook that everyone signed.. tears didn't just well up in my eyes.. the tears really flowed. I was sobbing like a big baby in my cubicle. Luckily, I sit in a corner away from everyone. Nobody saw my tears. I still am in a state of shock, all these people from all over the world.. all of you, sending me beautiful thoughts and wishes and prayers and poems and pictures. I didn't know what to say.

I went to lunch with my girlfriend. She gave me a note. When I got back to my desk, I opened it up. Inside, she told me how much she loves me and that every card she looked at just wasn't going to say how she really felt. She told me how lucky she was that I came into her life. She told me that she wants to spend every birthday with me for the rest of my life.

Ok, this isn't how my birthdays are. I never expected all this love all these incredible wishes. I will thank each of you personally for the caring thoughts and nice wishes that you sent me. Believe me, I will never forget this day.

I am not going to work on my birthday. I am going to stay home, sleep in and enjoy doing pretty much nothing in the morning. I do have some MBA work to do, but at 3pm I will pick up my boys and we'll go to a movie. After the movie, we'll pick up my girlfriend and have dinner together. I wish I could invite all of you.

I will say that all of you are with me, in spirit. Thank you again, for making this birthday the most special birthday of my life.

I may start to like birthdays now :)