It would seem fitting that yesterday, April 30, my blog got exactly zero views as yesterday was my birthday.

My birthdays have never been monumental blowouts by any means. Our family was never the family who had large parties (or small parties for that matter), tons of people around, or anything like that. So as I went to college, that I was kind of shocked at the idea of people wanting to celebrate my birthday. It was really foreign to me.

As I’ve grown older and had kids, we’ve got the pictures of the large parties for both girls, but has time as gone on, those parties have slimmed down as friend groups change and birthday parties aren’t the in thing. Our youngest daughter, whose birthday is in June will celebrate on a plane, heading back from Germany (which is a pretty cool present all by itself!). We’ll have our oldest daughter around for her birthday at least one more year. She’ll celebrate it this month by finishing her first year of college off, then moving to Cedar Rapids for a six month co-op at Rockwell Collins! Time keeps marching on and so do the ways we celebrate!

As for me, three years ago, my birthday was celebrated with a college visit to Madison, and the last two years have been prom, with this year involving our post-prom event. We were up until 4:30AM yesterday supervising high school students, so the day was spent moving slowing, eating cold pizza (from post-prom), watching Netflix, and eating chocolate cake (all three never bad things!).

I will say, for the first time, I was surprised by my students on by birthday. As I logged into my school email Sunday afternoon, it was flooded with students wishing me a happy birthday. Now, most years, it’s a “what treat do we get”, but this was different, and very cool. Most of our post-prom parents talked about napping during the day, not my wife. She made me a cake, which was a no calorie, no carb, all goodness kind of cake! 🙂

So, at 46 (*sigh*), I’m officially on the downward slide to 50. It’s been a trying year with health issues leading the pack, but I’m confident that those are under control. Now, I need to find time to start bringing my body back as I’ve not run in nine months, and I’m feeling that all over. But, with a little more patience, a little love, and a little bit of “damnit, I’m tired of feeling this way”, I should be able to start feeling like me again.

Celebrate, not celebrate, it’s up to you how you work with birthdays. What I’ve found, just roll with it. I was happy that I could spend a quiet day with my family and if that’s all your birthday is, enjoy that time for all it’s worth.

Because some days, you don’t need the party, you just need to feel like you matter.

And I did. 🙂