It's my Birthday, and I'm Quietly Excited About it

so many zeros & twos!

Today is pretty special—it's my birthday—check out the date: 02/20/2020 or 20/02/2020 (depending on where you live and how you write it).

That's a super-cool number sequence, and I'm glad I've lived long enough to see it. It’s that series of zeros and twos that led to my low-key birthday excitement.

Let me tell you a little story about birthdays. One you'll probably relate to.

As the years roll by, once we are out of childhood and well past adolescence when we no longer look forward to cakes decorated with dinosaurs, birthdays stop being fun. Yes, there are the drunken parties at bars or at a friend's house, which usually happen in one's twenties or thirties, or the birthday parties of the exuberant types—those people who celebrate their birthday week or even month. Drinking and buying stuff figures prominently during these protracted festivities.

But after a few decades have encircled your life like rings of a tree trunk, there comes a time when many of us (most?) hate birthdays. Especially those of us who tend toward the introverted side of the scale.

And why do we start to hate birthdays? Is it because the years are piling on, and we don't know how to look forward to getting older in a society that worships youth and the unlined beauty that accompanies it? Yep, I think so.

As we gather more birthdays under our belts, we view the upcoming birthday with a mix of despair and disdain. "Geez, how did I get here and when did I get so old," we think. And we especially don't want people to make a fuss as we watch the date approach—we want the day to pass with as little pomp as possible.

I was that person. Once I entered my fourth (and fifth!) decade, I wanted nothing to do with birthdays. Why the hell do these things keep coming up? And they seem to be coming at a faster pace each year!

And that's just it, isn’t it? Time flies as we are getting older and we don't want to be reminded that we are getting older.

So, this year, prompted by the intriguing date sequence, 02/20/2020, I decided I'd embrace my birthdays. Not in a let's party way, but in a wow, I'm super grateful to still be alive as the alternative to not having birthdays is being six feet under sort of way.  

So today, February 20, 2020, I'm happy it's my birthday, and I'm looking forward to many more. But none of my future birthdays, if I'm lucky enough to be around to have them, will land on a date like this one of all zeros and twos—and to this sort of nerdy gal, that's worth celebrating.

Random Bits

Other Feb. 20 birthdays:

Kurt Cobain

Cindy Crawford

Ansel Adams

Patty Hearst

Sidney Poitier