Keep the Receipt for that Pity

Today, I am going to my very first birthday party.  For the purposes of this post, I define ‘birthday party’ as a premeditated gathering of friends for the sole purpose of celebrating my birthday.  That this is my first may not seem strange to most of you, unless you figure out somehow that I am well into my twenties.  I myself am aware that it might seem surprising.  I’ve told a few friends that I never had a party for my birthday when I was a kid, and they were shocked.  “Not even once?” they asked.  “That sucks.” 

Well, I am writing this post to reply to that righteous outrage.  Gratefully, kindly, lovingly, I have only two words to say: Stop that. 

Stop feeling sorry for me because I never had something you took for granted.  When someone feels sorry for me, I tend to take on that emotion and start feeling sorry for myself.  And I don’t like feeling sorry for myself, because I am not a sorry person and my life is not a sad one.  Yes, maybe I did have four brothers and sisters and we couldn’t all have yearly birthday parties.  Yes, maybe my birthday was in summer and it was hard to get all of my friends together for a celebration while they were out and about on vacation.  (This was the pre-facebook era; invites would have needed to go out by phone or by mail.) 

But I remember every birthday growing up having been a wonderful one.  I always got great presents, and I can’t even remember whether they were expensive or not.  My siblings were nice to me on my birthdays (or at least they tried to be), and I had great cakes.  For a few years, when my dad was working at the local public library, he brought home specialty cakes made by a coworker, beautifully decorated on request.  Then there was the year I made my own, a mound of crumbs with frosting dripped on top—I still laugh when I think of that one.  And I did have a few birthday sleepovers, which were that much more fun because they were reserved for a few true friends.  Even as a child, I never felt deprived because I didn’t have raucous, chaotic gatherings of kids I wasn’t related to and didn’t really know.

And now that I’m an adult, I’m realizing that I don’t much like parties anyway.  My actual birthday passed earlier this week with no more notice except a few good wishes and a day of taking care of myself.  The “party” tonight is really just a gathering of a handful of my very best friends.  Do I appreciate their desire to celebrate me?  With all of my heart.  But I refuse to let the thought that this is the first time be anything but joy.

I have no complaints about my life thus far, and if I don’t choose to remember the things that might have been lacking, don’t point them out.  Everyone has different ideas about what makes happiness, and if they can find it, great.  Don’t feel sorry for me; be happy with me.  It’s much better that way, trust me.

Lucky Number 26

I had a birthday this week, meaning a part of the way I define myself has changed.  I am no longer 25, but 26, which one of my friends pointed out in mock horror is now my late twenties.  Gasp!  I don’t mind, however.  For one thing, I don’t ever want to be afraid of aging.  The way I see it, making it this far in a crazy world is something I can be proud of.  For another, 26 is my lucky number, so I have high hopes for this coming year.

I’ve told a few people this, and they’re usually surprised.  Apparently 26 is a strange number to consider lucky.  This in turn surprised me, because I was unaware that there are standards that judge the luckiness of numbers.  Isn’t it a decision based on personal observation?  For example, my father’s lucky number is 5, because he was born in 1955.  Mine is 26 because I was rookie number 26 in marching band years ago, and it’s stuck with me. 

But I’m willing to play along.  What makes a number lucky?  I googled it, and most of the results involved number games—“add up the numbers in your birthdate to get your lucky number”.  Well, I tried it, minus the zeroes: 7 + 1 + 1 + 9 + 9 is 27, and 2 + 7 is 9.  Okay.  As far as I can tell, though, 9 hasn’t ever done me any good.  I tried a second generator which asked me to put in a set of numbers, from which the lucky number would be chosen based on my first name and my birth date.  I gave the generator 2, 6, 8, 12, 13, 14, 16, 26, 48, and 52.  Guess what it gave me?  26.  Of course, it may be biased, because all of my choices were somehow derived from 26 to begin with.  Still, isn’t it interesting that it picked the one that I was going for?

Then I polled Facebook to see what others had to say.  Three different friends told me their choices were arbitrary, while several others had choices based on their birthdays.  One friend chose 9 because she liked the shape of it; another picked 3 because it groups well.  Everyone seems to make different associations with certain numbers and gravitate towards the positive associations.

Of course, there are certain associations that we share.  The first number to spring to mind when we ask about lucky numbers is 7.  Makes sense—7 days in a week, 7 seas, 7 continents, 007.  As a fantasy writer, I can tell you that that genre loves 7: the 7^th son of a 7^th son is always imbued with magic, not to mention the 7 dwarves.  What makes 7 so special?  Coming from my own Judeo-Christian education, I remember once being told that traditionally, biblical scholar associated 7 with perfection, as 3 was heavenly (the holy Trinity) while 4 represented earth (4 corners, right?).  Maybe that has something to do with it.  (There’s an article about 7 here which offers a few more theories).  Conversely, 6 is considered unlucky in the same tradition—almost perfect, but not quite.  I remember when I was a kid being told that I couldn’t have 6 as my favorite number because it was the devil’s number—666.  Maybe the inclusion of a 6 in my current favorite is a kind of perverseness.  Finally, there’s that most famous of the unlucky numbers, 13, which has its own word to describe the fear of it—triskaidekaphobia.  Try spelling that without spell check, I dare you.  What’s wrong with 13?  Is it because Death is the 13^th card in the Tarot deck, or because Judas was the 13^th apostle?  Does it have to do with knights Templar, or can we just credit it with 13 not being 12—again, almost perfect, but not quite?  Probably all of these things have contributed to it.  (And it hasn’t escaped my notice that 26 is two 13s.  I continue to be perverse even without realizing it.  For more about 13, check this out.)

In the end, what does luck really mean?  I think luck comes from the energy that we put into it.  We associate certain things with certain numbers, and so we notice more when those associations turn out to be true.  Does that mean that luck is all in our heads?  Well, yes, but isn’t everything else?  It’s comforting to have something to fall back on to help us make decisions.  Humans are subjective thinkers; we can’t help it.  So we adopt favorites—numbers, colors, songs, quotes—and use them to help guide us through this crazy world.  It makes the chaos of the many choices before us a little bit easier to navigate.

Don't Say It if You Don't Mean It

The radio was telling me a few days ago about an attack on an Istanbul airport.  So many dead, so many injured, so many in serious condition—I don’t remember the details, and I don’t particularly want to, because we are so inured to wanton devastation these days that those details may not mean as much as they should.  What stands out in my memory is one fact: that at the time, no one had “claimed responsibility” for the attack.

I hate that phrase.  It’s used nearly every time something horrible happens: who will “claim responsibility” for this new nightmare?  Clearly, these violent people have a different idea of responsibility than I do.  To me, “responsibility” involves some idea of the consequences of your actions.  Are these terrorists going to pay for the damages to buildings and infrastructure?  Will they pay for those put out of work by their actions?  Will they provide medical care to those injured?  Will they acknowledge in any way the lives that were destroyed? 

To be responsible is not just to know one’s fault, but to do what one can to correct it.  There’s no responsibility after these events, only a careless boasting that grinds salt into our wounds.  Bad enough that we have suffered; now the guilty want to pretend that there is a good reason for our suffering.  It all makes me see red.  It’s not responsibility; it’s guilt.  And the least we can do is call it what it is.