Birthday Celebrations

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday to you,

Happy Birthday dear Kelsey

Happy Birthday to you

As I sit in my room in Ethiopia approaching my 24^th birthday I have time to reflect on my 24 years of life, how I have spent birthdays in the past, how I am spending it this year, and how I will spend them in the future. As I discovered last year, birthdays are celebrated and held to different standards in different countries and cultures. In America birthdays tend to be a very big deal, with parties varying by type as people grow older, however the parties don’t decrease. In Ethiopia though, birthdays are really only celebrated for children, with adults birthdays passing by as they grow another year older.

Last year I celebrated my 23^rd birthday away from my family and friends for the first time ever, and it surprisingly was not as difficult as I thought it would be. My site mate Lauren made sure I got pizza for dinner, and then we met up with some Peace Corps workers who were around Tigray for site installation meetings. I got to open birthday care packages from my parents, which was pretty much better than opening gifts at home, and my land family made me a buna ceremony with the best kind of bread.

This year I am not sure how I will celebrate on my actual day, but I am meeting friends in Axum for shakla tibs and beer over the weekend. I am planning on teaching a female empowerment lesson using Beyonce’s “Run the World (Girls)” song in my classes on my actual birthday, in a late celebration of International Girls Day. I also have packages that arrived just in time for my birthday so I can open those like presents as well. I think Ally is coming in (she has to fly to Addis the next day for medical things for Peace Corps) and so we will probably eat dinner out, and then drink wine and watch a chick-flick at my house.

Birthdays symbolize a new beginning. Although it’s not “the new year”, it can be a fresh start to your life. People tend to measure life in 2 forms, the calendar year and then the year you have been on earth. Both are the same length of time, just marked on different days. Each year holds special meaning, and each can be measured with good and bad times. Birthdays are those placeholders to remind you how you have gotten to where you are today.

I have had some pretty memorable birthdays celebrated with friends and family. I might not always remember what I did or what gifts I received, but I will always remember the love I felt from the people that surround me, whether I am close to them geographically or whether we are far away. Facebook and their birthday reminders for our friends list help make me feel appreciated and loved, even if it is someone just writing “Happy Birthday” on my wall because they see it’s my birthday in the corner. I’m awful with remembering birthdays and can only remember my immediate families, Lynda’s, and Carson’s. All the other birthdays of my friends and family I have to look up (sorry everyone!). But I guarantee everyone else is the same way with me, and I’m ok with that.

I may be spending my birthday alone for another year (on the actual day), but I know that my friends and family are thinking of me and sending me love and good wishes even though they are across the world. That’s the great thing about birthdays: at least for one day, you are the most important person. You are always the most important person in your own life, but for a day you become more the center. I’m not saying become spoiled and ask to be the center of the universe, but you have the chance to become a more important person in someone else’s life because you are in their thoughts a little bit more.

I am the person I am today because of my friends, family, and the memories and lessons they have given me. I have reflected on those a lot this past year (well, a little more than that) and I have come to appreciate even more just how special these people in my life are. They have given me memories and moments that I can look back on fondly while here, especially on my hardest days. Birthdays are some of those moments I look on with the most love and laughter.

Birthdays are also the times to reflect on your past year and how you have grown as a person. I have grown so much the past year- I could not even begin to write everything down. Everything that has happened to me, every moment that’s surreal to think I’m actually living the life I am, and every lesson I have learned (both good and bad), has shaped my 23^rd year. I might not remember exactly every moment in a few years, but I will be able to reflect on future birthdays on how much I experienced when I was 23 and how cool of a life I got to live for that year.

My 24^th year should be quite an adventure. I’m teaching 10^th grade for a year in Ethiopia, I will hopefully travel around Ethiopia, I will hopefully get into graduate school and start attending that, and I will finish my Peace Corps service. My 25^th birthday will be celebrated somewhere in America, hopefully surrounded by new friends and with love and well wishes from friends and family all over the world. Some people complain about getting older, but I think it’s a blessing many people don’t get to have, and I embrace every moment of it.

That’s the great thing about birthdays: You get to feel loved and appreciated, you get to reflect on your past year and how you can improve for the next year, and you get to experience a blessing denied to many. Birthdays should be celebrated, if even just for the sheer joy of realizing how blessed you truly are.