prairiedog

Yesterday was my birthday (well, technically, two days ago, but since I usually stay up until the wee hours, I count my "days" from when I get up until I go to bed again), and it was a good one. That's saying something, because in my world, good birthdays are pretty rare. This year, I got to spend my birthday with someone I love and though we didn't do much more than hang out at my apartment, that's about all I wanted out of this birthday. Maybe next year I'll want a party or a night of clubbing or something extravagant, but this year it was just relax and hang out. So it was good.

Most of my past birthdays have been, well, nothing special, and some have been downright bad. Last year's pretty much sucked; mostly because someone I care about a great deal completely forgot about it, and I really let it get to me. The two worst (so far) happened in a row in '95 and '96. In '95, I showed up at work on my birthday only to be fired from a job that I mostly liked (oh yeah, and it was only two weeks before my wedding also, so no pressure there!). The next year, my (now ex) wife gave me the wonderful gift of an argument that ended in her telling me that she wanted a divorce (she changed her mind a week later, but it ended up happening a year later anyway). I quickly learned to dread my birthday, so yeah, I have some baggage about my birthday now.

So when I say I've had a good one, that's saying a lot, and it's a pretty important thing to me.

Thanks to everyone who wished me a happy one! It means a lot to be remembered (I say this as someone who's generally pretty thoughtless about remembering other people's birthdays myself . . . that's definitely something I have to work on).