Birthday Angst

I just escaped from my daughter’s 8th b-day party for her friends. My official masculine role was to light the candles. It’s a pretty big to do as we only allow “friend parties” on significant birthdays—5, 8, 12, and 16. My wife created a fancy Hawaiian theme with little wooden umbrellas to stick in the smoothies, music, and grass skirts. While lighting the candles I was thinking about how removed from the moment I was which led me to thinking about writing a blog about this insight which then reminded me of what my friend said about my blog, “Your blog is depressing; I don’t mean that as a critique but just as an observation.” It seems I’m rarely having a ball right in the moment, especially when (b-days, parades, holidays, graduations, etc.) your supposed to be having fun. At my kids parties or Christmas I’m almost always worried about the commercialism and the fakeness of it all; most often I feel super annoyed with my mother, who inevitably gives our children more (in number and costliness) gifts to our children than anyone else including us. It’s kind of depressing. I remind myself of Holden Caulfield in Catcher in the Rye when he’s all worried about those ducks in the pond while driving around in a taxi.

My mother is really into making everything right, choosing the right gift for each child, a gift they will go ape over. Of course this is a dangerous thing, expectations, as one can get disappointed. In these gift giving frenzies I first react to the whole mass of stuff, the commercialism, but then I start to watch my mother and worry about her being disappointed. Without fail I make a rather sarcastic remark, “Boy, I hope we can fit into our car after we put all this in” or “Nothing like investing a ¼ of our income in batteries to run all these toys.” Maybe these comments are to get back at my mother, to say, in effect: “told you not to set your hopes on all this crap.” And maybe they just express my frustration with the pressure and desire to have our lives feel meaningful.

I was thinking about a recent post on nostalgia (Unhip's) and how it ties into the b-day scene. Though I can’t name any one film, I know there have been several films with b-day scenes that induce heavy nostalgia for me. These scenes seem mistily representative of “a” life, an existence as it passes through different stages. I guess that’s what gets me: why can’t I feel some of this dreamy nostalgia-like feeling in the moment? I have to say it is much harder to engage with the moment, to enjoy what’s supposed to be enjoyable, than I thought it would be. I thought somehow it would be easier to find meaning in such important events. Instead the memory of events past or daydreams of moments to come are much more satisfying and real to me.