Birthday Thoughts

I have always hated my birthday—and I mean always—even and especially when I was little.

Because not only did it fall in summertime when school was out and there was no opportunity to share cupcakes with classmates at snacktime, my birthday almost always fell on Labor Day weekend.

Labor Day weekend marks the end of playtime. It is the unwanted ticket to homework and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It is when pools and beaches shut down--lobster shacks hide behind whitewashed boards.  It is the time when flip-flops and sneakers are switched out for shoes.

My birthday was always a harbinger of doom—a send-off to academic prison.

And now that I am older, it is a bit better—but still not so much. Department stores are still in transition—there is nothing good to buy to satisfy the void. Everyone is distracted by their own spiral of plans. Things get left behind.

But the pit is an opportunity to rise up and take charge—to use calculated information wisely. The pit is the final resting place of fallen ash—the point of dusting off. Because all birthdays—even and especially those on Labor Day weekend are like New Year’s Day. They are the time for a new start—like the crack of an untouched marble composition notebook opening for the first time. The lines are blank—in wait of words.

And so promise begins and hope takes hold. Because the past cannot be changed—only the future. Plans move forward to ensure that this time things will be different—that this revised formula will be the perfect balance. And when the candles extinguish and the grey smoke rises up, maybe this time  I will be compelled to say out loud: now that was a great birthday!