No day but…that day?

It’s now been three days since my birthday, and yet nothing really feels different. Oh, sure, I’ve got lotsa gifts (one of which is staring me in the face as I use it to move music between this computer and my own, but I don’t feel any different. I don’t feel like I’ve changed, or I’ve grown older. But then again, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Me ‘birth anniversary’ (according to Bathroom Readers, the term ‘birthday’ only refers to the exact date you were born and no other) was on the second day of the intrams, which mostly didn’t involve me (all I had to do was show up). As usual, I spent most of the day loafing off, but it was made harder by the people annoying me (shouting ‘libre’ or something). I ignored them, but I did make a note of it. I loafed off some more, then come lunch time, the annoying started again, and so I ended up buying twenty large slushies (though I did know my parents would pay me back) and bringing them to the front lobby. Then, I had the unenviable task of making sure those twenty slushies didn’t go to waste (I tell you, I was thankful there was a slushie left over for me to drink). Most people started greeting me after they got the slushies, though some did start before that. As soon as that finished, I resumed loafing, and did so until I got home, which was when I slept away the afternoon.

I thought about that day, and my initial analysis of it was that it was pretty lackluster, as birthdays of mine go. It didn’t have anything truly different from it, although it was different from your usual ennui-filled day (read: Sbarro dinner, and an overload of books from my relatives), and at the end of all of it, I didn’t feel as if anything changed, which brings us back to my starting point. However, as I thought about it a little more, I realized that maybe things did change. Maybe they just changed so slowly that I didn’t notice. Then I thought about everything–my world, my life–that had changed in the space of one year (to mention everything that has changed would take too long, though), and realized that things had changed so much that I was used to them. Things had changed so much that when my birthday rolled around, I was used to the change, and wasn’t as affected by it as I would be if nothing had changed–and that’s what makes this birthday different from all the others. That’s what makes that birthday more special than the other ones, the ones where nothing in that year changed much. Because this year was full of change, it even changed my birthday, and I’m grateful for that, I truly am.