HAVE EVERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Just about everything is new and exciting to children. Hiding inside a garbage bag and counting how long you could hold your breath? So fun. A hornet’s nest in the park just begging to be whacked with your baseball bat? Bring it on. There is little that doesn’t hold a sense of wonder because life has yet to hit us with all of its consequences. Everyday is to be celebrated because nothing needs be feared.

And though each passing year removes us further from that joy, there is no greater celebration for a kid than The Birthday Party. For one day, we get to be in charge. We eat what we want. We get gifts from friends and family. Life just can’t get any better than a cake, a bouncy castle and a trip to Chuck E. Cheese.

However, by the time we reach our 20s, under the enormity of our new expectations and responsibilities, a birthday doesn’t hold a fraction of the childlike wonder it used to. Odds are we’re employed, we’ve moved out and we’re struggling to pay our bills. We no longer have parents around to fund our wildest confetti dreams.

Then, by the time we’re able to afford birthday celebrations, we typically go out only on the nights of our milestone birthdays: 30, 40, 50. For shame! I propose that we flip what we celebrated as children with what we celebrate as adults. Instead of being happy to be in control for one day of the year, we should be happy to lose a little bit of that control for a night. A birthday is a time for excess: too many calories, too much to drink, an inordinate amount of friends.

Refusing to ring in your own personal new year is a duty best left to the humourless and insecure – those drones who believe they are too cool to have such flamboyant fun, do not want to be the centre of attention or are afraid to admit their birthday now fills them with the ceaseless dread of impending death.

Yes, we are all aging, and while it can be difficult to accept that you are yet another year older and haven’t done that thing you’ve been wanting to do, take the night off from your preoccupations, shake off the shackles of restraint and celebrate like a five-year-old. Because we are never too old to celebrate our birthday.