Another Year Older

For those of you playing at home, yesterday was my 31st birthday.

Birthdays are weird things.  For many people, having a birthday means that they are now a year older.  That's completely false, of course.  Time moves at a constant pace on our planet, so you age one day everyday.  Having a birthday doesn't make you older.  I don't think this is news to anyone, but because of the way that we track our age, it often feels like we've suddenly aged a year.  This perception can lead to having a bit of an existential crisis.  If you don't believe me, think about this: have you ever met someone who doesn't want to admit that they're older on their birthday?  If you haven't yet, you will.

Part of the problem is that even though time moves forward at the same, constant rate, we don't perceive it that way.  Time flies when you're enjoying yourself but drags at a snail's pace when we're doing something tedious or boring.  Add to that the fact that we measure our ages by whole years, it can often feel like an entire year has dropped itself on you.

To prevent having weird feelings of getting older on the anniversary of my birth, I start thinking of myself as being older a few months before my birthday.  Around New Year's, I upgrade my age in my head.  When my birthday finally rolls around, my new age is old news.  I realize that this approach isn't for everyone, but it works for me.

I do want to mention that while I don't use my birthday as a marker for my age, I do still enjoy celebrating it.  As with last year, I went to the Larsen's to celebrate my birthday, though it was more convenient to party the day before.  We ate burgers, had cake, and played board games.  It was fun and easy going, which is how I prefer things.

As a marker of time, birthdays aren't important to me, but as an excuse to have fun, they're great.