a long time ago.....

Amazing... I'm almost 23. I was looking at some old pictures the other day. They were pictures of a birthday party that took place years ago. Looks like it was at our old house in Kearns , Utah . I must have been turning 9 or 10, couldn't be any older than that because we moved out when i was eleven i think. Birthdays back then were great. two of my brothers and i were born within a week or so of each other. We'd have these massive neighborhood wide parties, each of us inviting our set of friends. My other brother , whose birthday was in april and so the farthest from all of ours , always got to have his party with us too. If we didn't do that he ended up feeling left out. Anyway, it was always incredible, usually we were just out of school for the summer, not more than a week out. All of us were excited, Mom would make a few cakes. We'd pull out the slip n slide and turn on the hose. In SLC it was usually plenty warm by the begining of june for the lawn water toys. You'd never known there was ever any drought the way we used the hose out front. Most years once we were older we got to have 24 hr parties, we'd have the main event in the afternoon. Once all the cake was eaten and presents unveiled, once we were all exhausted from playing in the sun, then the slumber party began.we would break out the rented vcr and play movies for a couple hours. we'd separate into our separate groups and spend the night seeing how much we could annoy eachother. :) it was great.
Birthdays aren't quite the same anymore. I still usually manage to have fun, but it's usually a small gathering of family and friends. Nice and quiet, sometimes see a movie or just hang out and have fun. The anticipation just isn't there though, no planning endlessly or making guest lists and home made invitations. Weird how people always talking about how views change , but never really believing it until it happens. When i realized it worked on my birthday it really seemed no big deal. I'm off at 6:30 after all and that's plenty of time to go to dinner and movie. A couple friends suggested going out to some of the clubs the friday before. it sounds fun but i'd really rather spend the time actually having a good conversation with people than in a loud room full of smoke.
I guess we'll just see how it goes. after all as "They Might be Giants" so eloquently states, "you're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older" is always and ever true, not just one day of the year but all of them.