The Birthday

Happy Birthday Vanessa!

I cannot quite remember who invented birthdays and why we celebrate them .. but my guess it's around the time when calendars were first printed and there weren't so many public holidays then .. and we needed a reason for an extra day or two to slack ..

I think if we really want to celebrate, we should also include the day when we were conceived, you know, the day of the union of the sperm and the egg. That is D day when you actually came into existence, right? But it's hard to tell the exact day though, and in some cases, you may not even know who did it ... especially when alcohol was involved.

And what if you were born in the forest of some tribal family, where nobody actually ever heard of a calendar? So the only way of remembering your date of birth is by the shape of the moon and stars, and maybe some unique experience happening on that day ....... " Son, when you were born, the moon was half covered by the sun's shadow, the stars were aligned like a shape of a crab, your mother was screaming away and there were a few gorillas standing by the side watching." And that would be the poor chap's birthday ...

Buying gifts for someone's birthday is not easy. You are not sure what the person really like, the colour, the size, the style etc. Buying yourself a gift at any one time is so much easier, you will never run out of ideas what to buy for yourself. But buying for others is tough. That's why people resort to buying photo frames as presents to relief their agony. That's when you know the giver did not make any effort in buying the present and they cannot be bothered by your reaction. They think you are living with 50 other family members and you need that many photo frames to get by. And so the recycling of gifts starts, you are tired of getting the photo frames every year, then you start to give them away on other people's birthday! Then the gift becomes a re-present. Ever receive any one of these? You can tell its a recycled gift when the wrapping feels a bit old and the gifter says she has been planning what to buy for you a few months before .. "Its the thought that counts. " " ya right, go to hell, I am giving you a potato slicer next year for your birthday ... plus a photo frame. "

Nowadays people celebrate children's birthday as early as one or two year's old. I cannot quite remember those moments when I was one and I am sure most people don't. And when you reach 120 years old, your birthday would be quite the same as the first few years. You don't have the teeth to eat your cake, you need people to wipe the cream off your face, you cannot walk properly, you are wearing diapers and you cannot recognise the people taking pictures with you.

Thats when you know you have come full circle.