More on Birthdays

I find it funny that you say "congratulations" on someone's birthday here. It implies that living another year was quite an accomplishment, and after I've chuckled I am reminded that, in fact, it is. It feels good to have survived another year on this dangerous planet. The other day I tripped and fell on the sidewalk, in the direction of the street. I suffered only a sore leg and a scraped forearm, and I quickly realized that if I had fallen just a few inches more to the left, I could have been run over. I didn't even break my glasses--that would have been a very expensive accident.

My wife was hit by a bicycle last year. We called an ambulance to take her to the emergency room only as a precaution--I was worried that perhaps there had been some internal injury we couldn't detect. She turned out fine, and our minds were preoccupied with all of the worse things that could have happened in the same instant. It could have been a motorcycle, or car. She could have hit her head on the pavement and suffered a concussion.

I don't want to reveal just how morbid my imagination gets on a daily basis. I'm very much a Monty Python, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" kind of guy. And looking on the bright side often means considering the greater extent of the harm we didn't come to.

I have been thinking about some people I have met who have always made a point to take the day off for their birthdays, something I have never felt compelled to do as an adult. I have been unlucky enough to work the same shift as one such person, and every other breath I'd hear, "I can't believe I'm working on my birthday." Gets old quick.

Well, I can't believe I'm blogging on my birthday. Later, dear reader.