My Birthday Is My Favorite Day Of The Year

Apr 16, 2011 by Sara

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So this is lining up to be the best birthday EVER! William and Kate are going to provide some of the best eye-candy on the 29th and then the next day is MY birthday!

As I mentioned birthdays are a big deal in my house, and this hype seems to have rubbed off on me too. Now I fully look forward to celebrating my birthday every year which wasn’t always the case…

Between the ages 12 to 30*, somehow I always ended up crying on my birthday (*except my 17th – see below). I didn’t really look forward to it. Maybe it had something to do with the general angst of the tween years (but we weren’t called ‘tweens’ then) or my parents’ divorce or losing my mom. Whatever the reasons, birthdays during this time period were kind of ‘bleh’.

On the flip side, all birthdays before age 12 were magical, my mom made amazing animal-shaped cakes with treasures tucked inside and we celebrated with a couple of friends.

Some of my most memorable birthdays went like this:

• Age 8: I received a Fisher Price Cassette Player with two tapes: Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, featuring I love Rock and Roll and the other cassette was The Beatles. I listened to them incessantly.
  

  source: http://www.dougbowski.co.uk/

• Age 10: the “double digits” birthday. I had a party at school with homemade cupcakes, got a cake at home before we left for England to see my grandparents, then on the plane all the passengers of our transatlantic flight sang Happy Birthday to me over the p.a. system.  THEN, I got a slice of cake from First Class! When we arrived in England, my grandparents had bought an enormous beautiful birthday cake complete with royal icing flowers. I ate a HUGE piece and then promptly threw up. Still might be my most favorite birthday ever…

• Age 17*: Great birthday despite being smack in the middle of the ‘dark birthday ages’. My boyfriend (and future husband) got take-out from a 5-star restaurant that I refused to go to with him (because what 2 teenagers eat at 5 star restaurants?) and he set it up on the deck of his boat in the marina. It was SUPER romantic.

My worst birthday was my 15th birthday:

• While my friends all got their learner’s permits on their 15th birthdays, I flew to Montreal with my Mom for my parents’ divorce proceedings. I went in case the judge needed to hear from me. Fortunately, they settled right before the hearing, unfortunately, my mother fell apart before my eyes and I was left to scrape her off the floor. It sucked.

 

Then my 30th birthday rolled around and a funny thing happened… I kind of turned my string of bad birthdays around.

I was VERY self-conscious about turning 30 as this seemed like a huge milestone in one’s life and I was very pregnant. I was depressed about not having my mom there with me to share this birthday and the birth of my daughter and I really just wanted all the celebrations to be over quickly, so I opted to have a combined 30th birthday & baby shower.

(By the way, there are NO pictures from this birthday/shower because I looked like a HOUSE. Well there ARE pictures but I will not be posting them. I did not do pregnancy well so you will just have to use your imagination.)

It ended up being a great celebration and caused me to view things completely differently. I was celebrated and surrounded by my close friends and family and I felt very loved. The baby received all kinds of very thoughtful gifts and I received kind words of wisdom and encouragement from my mother’s friends. It was an amazing moment where I was able to open up my heart and reecive all of the love and attention being directed at me.  Maybe it had to do with the baby, but I realized I could not focus on the negative empty spaces in my life anymore, and I had so much to be thankful for. I had so much to celebrate! So all of a sudden I loved my birthday again!

From that day forward I’ve looked forward to my special day and in fact, I’ve kind of played it up and milked it wherever possible.  Nowadays, I plan my own birthday so I get exactly what I want. I tell my husband exactly what I want every year, which is usually a card and he writes me a sweet letter ( so honey, this is what I want again this year).

It’s been great.

This year, I feel like I’m getting 2 parties, the Royal Wedding Viewing Party AND we are going out for dinner on my birthday. Bonus!!

So I’m planning both and while I know what I will be wearing for my RW2011 Party (see here) I thought I would try something new and have you guys help me pick my ‘birthday’ party dress.  It has to be from Piperlime.com because I have some serious coupons to use up there plus I get another 15% off because it’s my birthday.

So which dress do you think I should sport?

Let me know what your favorite birthday memory is!

Maybe least favorite?