An October Birthday
October 11th, 2006,Yesterday was my 41st birthday. My parents drove down and joined us, which made the whole day seem more festive. It’s a bittersweet celebration as I get older, as the hall of years behind me gets longer and the one ahead gets shorter. As we get older, a birthday causes use to ask some questions: have I used my years well? how many lie ahead?
At the same time, this ritual of the birthday connects us with childhood, when the celebration isn’t weighted with the knowledge and infirmities of advancing age. Each birthday I remember the joy of childhood birthdays, and I get to reexperience some early pleasures: getting presents and some good food and some cake. I also indulge myself a little more with small pleasures during the day - taking an extra break, for example, relaxing the daily routine.
I’m not sure why, but yesterday I also looked up which people share my birthday. I think I wanted to feel some connection to some celebrity out there. However, no one especially interesting turned up. They include Harold Pinter, David Lee Roth, and Brett Favre. More interesting were lists I found of celebrities - mainly actors, all of them living, I think - born in 1965, the year I was born. Here are some of the people that I noted:
Fareed Zakaria
Thomas Frank
John C. Reilly
Kyra Sedgwick
Alan Cumming
Sarah Jessica Parker
Robert Downey, Jr.
Paulina Porizkova
Trent Reznor
Brooke Shields
Elizabeth Hurley
J.K. Rowling
Moby
Scottie Pippen
Charlie Sheen
Ben Stiller
Andy Dick
Chris Rock
Justine Bateman
David Robinson
Bjork
Mario Lemieux
I find the list interesting because I can observe how some of these folks are progressing through life with the knowledge that we started at a similar point in time.