Just Another Tuesday

I turned 28 two days ago. If I should rank occasions and anniversaries in terms of being personally bothersome, my birthday will be right at the top with maybe the retirement anniversary of my orange Suzuki hatchback ranked at the bottom. Personally bothersome, because birthdays that occur after the 21st become as momentous as emptying the cloth dust-bag of my 1400W vacuum cleaner. As the years add on, birthdays become increasingly paradoxical and the reason to celebrate dilutes in its meaning. Yet it is a day that you can’t take for granted even if you try to, and anything less than doing ‘something’ about it; be it a celebration or doing something extraordinary like shampooing your hair with shaving cream, would render the mere 24hrs like life in depressionville.

I recited to myself on the days leading to my birthday, that it is just another day, and if you put your mind to it, it will be just another day. Yet the churning feeling in my gut told me otherwise. What is it about birthdays anyway? What is it exactly that we are celebrating? That I was born? It makes little sense. While you hear common linguistic expressions such as ‘will make you wished that you were never born’, you will notice that nobody ever says ‘boy I’m glad that I was born.’ As such, the essence to the celebration is somewhat murky, and the conflicting fight between making the day an ordinary one, and one to remember becomes confusing as much as it is bothersome.

Fine, I figured that I needed to do something about it. We’ll make it simple, like dinner with two friends over some sake at a decent Japanese restaurant. For some peculiar reason, I was in the mood for sake. There is something about sake and birthdays that make them come together, like yogurt and tandoori chicken. The first person on my guest list was Vietboy, just because he got me drunk in Hanoi so I have to return the favour; that is, despite knowing that his liver was preserved for a century in alcohol prior to his transplant. I guess I just wanted someone to drink with, although I knew that drinking with Vietboy would be like playing poker with the devil himself.

So I have this really cool picture in my head, Vietboy my Japanese colleague and maybe one other friend in a cool, clean-looking Japanese place where we’ll sip sake till the cows come home. Alas, I should have known better that things never work out the way they did in my head. There was the element of guilt, because within my clique of friends, my birthday is as much a secret as knowing which party will win the next Singapore election. The logic is skewed, but that’s how it worked; if I invite so-and-so, I have to invite so-and-so, but if so-and-so was there, so-and-so must come along as well. Don’t get me wrong, if I could help it, I would want nothing more than every person I know on this planet to come together over a few drinks but I don’t want it to be obligatory on my account. Not to mention, there is also the element of presents. It just doesn’t feel right that my friends have to spend money on me. I like presents, but I don’t like the fact that they cost money. Yet they still did it and made me feel like a very blessed man.

It was 7pm on a Tuesday night. There were twelve people in a private room of a pretty decent Japanese restaurant. There were three bottles of sake, there were presents, and there amongst friends was a testimonial that perhaps I have done something right to deserve their company. Birthdays are a special day. Perhaps the supposed meaning to celebrate the birth of a person seems somewhat awkward. However, there is no doubt that it is a day where one can get to appreciate that there are people around who care enough to drop a line, a word of well-wish, or share a sake or two and make him feel that it really is a beautiful world out there.

So thank you all for putting my name in your thoughts on the day that really wasn’t special, but was so just because you decided it was to be.