Wear the Crown

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 53.

Fifty-three is not one of the birthdays we usually call significant. It does not end in a zero or a five. There are no greeting cards congratulating me on reaching this particular age. No one asks what I plan to do for the big five-three.

But I think 53 is significant.

Every birthday is.

I went to work, because birthdays do not automatically become holidays just because I believe they should. One of our kindergarten educators made me a crown. It was purple, handmade and wonderfully conspicuous, with “Happy 53rd Birthday!!” written across the front. I wore it proudly.

The kids had a dance party for me. There was singing and dancing and all the exuberance children bring to an occasion when someone gives them permission to celebrate. My wife brought cupcakes for me to share with the staff. People wished me a happy birthday all day long, partly because I was wearing a giant purple crown that made it difficult for anyone to miss.

I loved every minute of it.

I have always loved my birthday. I like telling people it is coming. I like cake and cards and messages from people I have not heard from in a while. I like having dinner with the people I love. I like feeling special for a day.

Apparently, adults are supposed to become a little embarrassed by all of that.

Somewhere along the way, we are expected to stop making a fuss. We say things like, “It’s no big deal,” or “I’m trying to forget how old I am.” We tell people not to do anything. We insist that it is just another day. We may permit a larger celebration when the number ends in zero, but the birthdays in between are treated as routine maintenance.

I don’t understand that.

Reaching 53 is not less worthy of celebration simply because 50 came before it and 60 is still some distance away. I have never been 53 before. I had to live every one of the days that brought me here.

Those years have held births and deaths, beginnings and endings, love and disappointment. I have made mistakes. I have changed careers within a career. I have raised children, worried about them, let them go and watched them become everything they want to be. I have built friendships, lost friendships and learned things I wish I had understood sooner. I have created a home. I have written stories. I have sat at hospital bedsides and dinner tables. I have worried about money, work, family and the future. I have laughed until I could barely breathe.

None of that feels insignificant.

Birthdays are not just celebrations of age. They are celebrations of presence.

One day, I will celebrate my last birthday. So will you. Most of us will not know that it is the last one while we are living it. We will eat the cake (and can we please all agree not to blow out candles on a shared cake anymore? That is one COVID-era lesson I hope we can keep), open the cards and make plans for the following year. We will assume there is another birthday waiting for us somewhere up ahead.

Maybe there will be. Hopefully, there will be many.

But there are no guarantees.

One day, there will be a gathering where people tell stories about me. There may be music and photographs, flowers and food. People might talk about the things I did, the ways I made them laugh and the moments when I showed up for them. They may say kind things that I would have been deeply grateful to hear.

But I won’t be there.

I don’t want my funeral to be a better celebration than my birthday.

I don’t want the biggest gathering, the loveliest words and the most generous expressions of affection to arrive after I am gone. I want to hear the stories now. I want to eat the cupcakes. I want to dance with the kids and laugh at myself and wear the ridiculous, beautiful crown.

I want the people I love to know that I am glad they were born too.

Perhaps that is what birthdays are really for. They give us an annual opportunity to say, “You are here, and that matters.” Not because a person has reached a culturally approved milestone. Not because they have accomplished enough or earned enough or become enough. Their life itself is the occasion.

Yesterday, I turned 53.

I went to work. I wore a handmade purple crown. Children danced and sang for me. My wife arrived with cupcakes. I told people it was my birthday, and I let them celebrate me.

There was nothing insignificant about it.

I am here now.

That is reason enough to dance.