Tikkabik

Somewhere after we'd had a kid or two I stopped really paying attention to my own birthday. I'd always have sort of a numb recognition of it, and act like a good sport when people wished me a happy one, but I certainly didn't make a big *deal* out of it. That ambivalence continues to grow from year to year.

Birthdays are, by and large, for the young. Kids know that birthdays mean presents and parties. Young adults use them as an excuse to tear loose, get drunk and act wild. For me, it's just another demarcation of time, little different from starting a new calendar year.

Personally, I don't want to go through the *hassle* of a birthday. Bonnie has been prodding me for a few weeks now on ideas for gifts, cake preferences, and so on, and I've told her that I would prefer to have none of it. It's not for wanting to be a buzzkill or wallowing in self-pity at having grown another year older. That stuff is for drama queens.

All I crave is simplicity and constancy -- two qualities that are totally absent from my life. How do you give someone *that* for a birthday?

I want *less.* I want less of everything: Less chaos, less stuff, less distraction, less change. I just want to put the brakes on everything for a little while. I want some peace.

For the most part, the only person who really *celebrates* my birthday is my mom, and that's probably as it should be. I have no doubt I'll be the same way when my kids are in their mid-30s. So we're going to go over to her house for brunch later today, after Bonnie and the kids are done with church and Sunday school. There will be bacon, she tells me. And cake.