365 Days Around The Sun

A Day

Presents are opened from loved ones, as are envelopes addressed to you that arrive in the mailbox. Ranging from those who can’t be with you to celebrate your day or those that live in faraway states. The envelopes might have carried checks and mostly others just had beautiful sentiments with handwritten scrawls that tell you they love you.

Candles are lit, and then the cake goes dark, after a wish was made. The cake is sliced, handed out and eaten (if it ‘cake’ was any good). The night eventually comes to a close. The guests slowly trickle out to head home and before you know it the evening/day is over.

The dishes are washed and placed in the dishwasher as though the “special” day never existed. Just another day to celebrate on the calendar comes to an end.

I have never been one who likes or even cares about ‘birthdays’ with some exceptions to me, my daughter’s, and my Wife’s. Partially because I saw my daughter’s actual birth and because my wife is adopted, and her birth mother chose life over an abortion…THAT is special.

Yes, it is a day different than most to some; but why is it so special we need to make a big deal? It is more important to open your eyes the next morning and breath in the air. That to me is something to celebrate.

We all have our “Damn I wish I WOULD/WOULDN’T have done that yesterday.” The only thing we can cling to is that the day is over and today we get the opportunity to ‘celebrate’ a new one; TODAY. Or maybe your yesterday was great, filled with joy and excitement that makes you want to relive it. Only for the day to have past and it has just left you with memories. The date on the calendar changed, but was it that 1 day out of 365 to party? Odds are no. All days are different.

Thinking back to my so called MANY ‘special days’ it was not the presents or the cards, I don’t remember half the gifts I received; except for that one Monday Night Football game at Lambeau Field and the PACKERS that happened to fall on my actual birthday in December. I sat and I soaked it all in. It was a blustery cold evening with a negative 17-degree windchill factor at kickoff and light snow began to cover the ground. Friends watching from the comfort of their home lit my phone up with texts asking if I was crazy, one even bet on the game as he asked my thoughts of the outcome.

The newspaper, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel was delivered to our hotel door before the game that morning and it told fans to bundle up and not go shirtless. Of course, a few morons who drank way too much at tailgate did go shirtless. I’ll bet they regretted that the next morning as they woke with severe frostbite. My hope is that they were still to liquored up from the night before to feal the pain.

Here is the only other thing that I will always remember about my birthday, and it is a recipe.

3-Cups Confectionary sugar

1/3-teaspoon of salt, Only French fries need salt. But the directions call for it…so we add it

2-eggs

½-cup of butter

3-unsweetened chocolate squares

Mixed all together and you have the greatest chocolate icing for a yellow cake ever. My family is so kind to make it for me every December, as they know I love it. So maybe those days are special after all. Family.

Family is not something we can choose before we are born. God just puts in the places we are destined to be. He gives us special talents and people that surround us who love us in good times and bad.

Next year I am going to change my attituded towards birthdays…because looking back that one day is special to the one whom who was born on that date.  So, I have made a commitment that as this year concludes too not be as selfish. And relish in someone else and not be an utter curmudgeon.

Change and CHEERS!