It is that same day of the year for me, and it may not be the same day for many others – the day we call it “birthday”. There are different birthdays, in recent years it is more about passing it quietly alone or with family.
Unlike the past nine years, this time, there is the increment at the tenth digit of a number we call “age”. As the tenth digit rolls to the new significance, it has gone its path beyond the half-time. It seems only days ago when I asked my brother, 2 years elder, what he did at the turn, he hadn’t done anything special.
When I asked my daughter what she would do on her birthday, the answer is, quite expectedly from a teenager, “nothing”.
“Nothing” is one of the difficult states to achieve for any living things. Does “nothing” include sleeping (could be), eating (could be), reading book (could be), exercise (could be), watching TV (could be). My “nothing” has not included a normal day of work. The “nothing” includes emailing my siblings, emailing my friends. Sometimes, these correspondences draw something that we don’t think of, things like “I try day-in-day-out to be good with people around me. Yet time and time again, discover the limitation and keep trying to be better next time.” It is the kind of thought similar to a tennis player hitting an amazing shot and then “how does this come about?”
My “nothing” includes nice gifts. On this day, a lovely thank-you letter from my daughter in Japanese that only the two of us understands in the family, what can be more heart-warming than that? My gratitude goes to my mother. Out of many unsuccessful attempts to have the kids to love any type of sport, my son gifts me a bunch of coupons that I can use to drag him to do exercise; the only catch is that his coupons have immediate expiration dates for many activities. To compensate, he also buys me something else. My spouse gifts me one of the most expensive caps, from Roger Federer Foundation, to go with my passion in tennis. And we share a tasty birthday cake from Paris Baguette.
In the end, who remembers our birthdays the most – it is the calendar of the computer as my eye doctor, my insurance company and many service providers would all remember, no matter how busy its processing is on the day, every single year. To be fair, the HR also remembers, for a company of over 1000 employees, even this is just from the computerized calendar, “it is the thought that counts”. The more memorable tend to be from folks that we haven’t heard from for a while; it is that type of surprise that we treasure in a bit unfair way.
Here we go, the life expectancy decreases as the appreciation and gratitude over nothing increases.
oliviatamccue 
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