Tomorrow is my birthday! When we are kids birthdays are so exciting….we are one year older…parties…presents…phone calls from family members we may have not heard from all year wishing us a great day. Not being able to sleep the night before simply anticipating our birthday.

Because my birthday is so close to Halloween it was always a huge celebration. I remember dressing up as Casper the friendly ghost each year, with the same plastic mask we would just put away and save until the next year. I remember my mother hiring marionettes to come to my party. One year the newspaper even printed a picture of one of my parties!

For my sweet sixteen instead of the traditional party I had a big costume party where everyone was invited,  music and dancing right in my parents den. So birthdays held a great memory for me.

When my son was born I wanted to keep the tradition, I wanted his day of birth to be a celebration. So big fun parties continued. Because our birthday was a celebration of our birth ….right? And everyone was suppose to celebrate our day!?

But as I got older and I wake up on my birthday things have changed. The big celebrations became family dinners than became family phone calls. My son’s big parties were still parties but more with his friends only. So I changed my birthday focus. My birthday is about my birth….my life…another year that I have done the best I can do and have been the best person I can be. I try to do something on my birthday for myself with myself.  If it is a movie, going shopping or one year I went to a book signing an hour away where I had movie Producer Judd Apatow sign his new book for me wishing me a happy birthday.
Don’t pass up your birthday as another day. Teach your kids, and remind yourself to celebrate the day you were born. When celebrations and expectations stop, You still have you and you achieved another amazing year… let’s go 54!