I turned 38 a few days ago.
After years of encouraging everyone I know to treat my birthday like any other day, they finally did. Several people ignored it completely, my mother-in-law phoned a day late, and my mother called a week early.
It was wonderful.
I'm not sure when I started hating my birthday. It wasn't a particular year; no milestone age. Instead, I think it's been a cumulative effect. My aversion to the day has nothing to do with how old I am and everything to do with memories.
I think I remember one party my parents had for me as a child, but it could be a mental reconstruction based on some pictures I've seen. And that's the only childhood birthday I can recall. Once I turned 13 and moved in with my father, birthdays were a reminder that I had come from an alcoholic, unstable mother. I didn't want to live those origins.
Most days my life was so far removed from its beginning that it was easy to forget, but my birthday became a trigger, shooting sadness through me like a bullet. Until I had a child of my own. And then, my relationship with my mother changed (it helped that she had recovered in various ways over the years), and my perception of her changed. Perhaps as importantly, birthdays -- anyone's -- only reminded me of the day Colter was born, an experience I love to relive.
This year on my birthday, my son woke me with a hug, and my husband made me a great Greek omelette. I opened cards from family and friends, and saved the presents for later. We went swimming, shopping for books (my favorite pastime) and to a baseball game.
My boss had given us the tickets and arranged for my birthday to be announced, with all the day's others, on the scoreboard. It was such a nice, thoughtful gesture, and to my surprise, I realized how much fun recognition can be.
I have a friend who obsessively hides his birthday from other people. I've never done that, but I don't typically trumpet it either. This year, I did tell a new friend when it was because I knew he'd feel terrible if he missed it. He e-mailed me a really nice "wish certificate," and I appreciated the gesture.
There was a time when prompting such a gift would have taken any joy out of it for me. Not anymore. My birthday has achieved its proper proportions.
No kindness -- or lack of kindness -- matters more than it would on any other day.
My husband made me three bookmarks for my birthday -- a wooden one, a braided one, one with beads. They seem an especially appropriate gift this year, and not just because I love to read.
I've come to believe that birthdays are not about marking my place in the world -- how many square feet my home is, how much I get paid, how far I've come in my career. Birthdays are about marking my place in my life.
Just as a bookmark indicates where I am, a birthday marks how far I've come, what I've accomplished and what goals remain.
Am I simply marking time or making a mark? The quality of every day depends on the answer.
This LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.
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