Happy birthday

I don’t know for you but personally I don’t like birthday celebration and don’t even understand why it is so important for so many people. How can you be happy the day that rings a bell recalling you are closer to the end of your journey?

What do we celebrate? This is my question each year. I remember when I was five years old, my older cousins told me the day before my birthday that I will becoming a “grown girl”. I was so frightened as he told me that as I thought that something terrible would happen during the night that would transform me. I was so troubled that I could not sleep that night.

Should we consider birthday time as rite of passage as it was done in the past by several tribes to celebrate the important period of the life? It was more a test than a party. Young boys had to proof they were able to fight and survive in difficult condition and young girls were submitted to other female proves.

I think that birthdays and other traditional celebrations like Christmas or Easter have been captured by the marketing prospects and converted into pure product of consumption. Have you noted that the month of your birthday you receive bunches of special offers from stores you have visited even once? It is boring and sad to realize that you are considered only under the angle of potential profit for the society.

Another point that completed my disillusion is when I realized that birth date is often used as your social security number to check your identity. You are ONLY a number. No consideration for the miracle of the life that happen when you were born. You are a number.

The only pleasure I have with my birthday is to see the joy of my mother and the endless narrative she likes to repeat each year about my birth. I like to see her joy. This is the best present I can receive.