Happy Birthday to Everyone

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming,
Or the the moment of truth in your lies,
When everything feels like the movies,
And you bleed just to know your alive.

"Iris" by The Goo Goo Dolls

I recently was speaking to someone that was getting ready to celebrate their childs birthday. The planning of the party, invitations, reservations, gift buying, all the typical things that go into a childs birthday she was mulling over because the party was the next day. When I walked away from the conversation I imediately started thinking about my kids and THEIR birthdays. To the kids, even the adult types, a birthday is a date in time that represents when our existance come about. We get presents, cakes, special treatments, and so on and so forth. The day also represents milestones in our lives. 16, 21, 40, 65 etc... We look at birthdays as "OUR" day. The one thing that is often overlooked is the fact that a birthday means much, much more to the parents. I look at my childrens birthdays as some of the happiest days of my life. The nine months of preparation, anticipation, excitement all pinicles on the day of the birth. We spend the next infinate amount of years raising, nuturing, thinking about their safety at all hours, what can we do to make them happy, and all those things. Then, as I am and will continue to find out, later in life we look at each birthday as a testement as to how we have and are raising our children. Are they a respectful teenager?, productive young adult?, are they happy?. How many kids remember their actual birth? none of them do. They have a document (birth certificate) that verifies the date and people who tell them that their birthday is a specific day. Just think, if you had a kid and never told them their birthday, never celebrated it, the parents would be the only ones who knew it. I don't think the parents get enough recognition on the day they celebrate the birth of their kids. We take second seat so they can have their day. I am not saying that that is not the way it should be, I am just pointing out my thoughts on the matter.

So what does all this have to do with the song clip from the Goo Goo Dolls? My kids are getting older. This is just one of the thousand things that are going through my mind right now during my mid-life crisis. I am alive, and the things that cause me pain and joy I find myself really analyzing right now. Trying to get a little more joy and a lot less pain.