I have this thing for birthdays. 

Not really my own birthday, but birthdays, generally speaking.  

One time for my birthday, my roommate had a surprise breakfast planned. I had gone out of the apartment for an early morning commitment, and he put together a scheme for all my friends to come over and be there upon my return. He drove an hour south to pick up a box of Krispy Kreme donuts (they were an object of both irony and fascination at the time), got back to our place, and promptly distributed various items of my clothing to the friends who’d been crazy enough to gather at seven-thirty in the morning. They each had an impression of me ready – a surfer bro with a board talking about the swell forecast; a sweater-adorned, tea-drinking poet in a reclining chair; a guy who was clearly late for work. (That one hit a little too close to home.)  

The thing was, I never came back to the apartment. My morning meeting ran late, and I just skipped right into whatever was next on the schedule that day. That’s the problem with surprise parties, I guess; you don’t really know they’re happening. I ended up with a video on my phone that still makes me cringe and cackle to this day. The camera pans across “me” in all my colors…and finally to a box of uneaten Krispy Kreme donuts sitting on the dining room table.  

I’m Glad We Exist

When I think about why I like birthdays, my mind goes to a poem called The Orange, by Wendy Cope. It’s not a poem about birthdays, per se, but the last stanza reads like this: “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” 

I’m snagged by the simplicity of those two sentences every time I read them. I plan a lot of dinners, coordinate a lot of volunteer events, arrange community walks, and attend civic engagement opportunities – all in hopes that they might stave off some loneliness, for myself and others. Somewhere along the line it occurred to me that this was kind of the reason, distilled into its most basic few words, that I do the work I do. I love people, and I’m glad we exist. 

There are a lot of really pragmatic reasons these days to get busy and conduct some birthday celebrations. Recent polls have shown that 86% of American adults would be very or somewhat happy if someone threw them a surprise party for their next birthday (maybe with at least a hint of advanced communication). As awful as it is, 74% of us also say that we like it when people sing us the “Happy Birthday” song. Yet, as an article in The Atlantic pointed out this year, just 4.1% of adults on average are attending gatherings over the weekends at this point. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – it’s high time to party.  

At the heart of it, though, I think the songs and cake are worth the hassle if only because we get to tell someone that we are glad they exist. In a birthday toast I gave a friend, I said, “It’s entirely possible you could have not been here. But you are. And I’m really glad you are.” That’s what a birthday is about, in my book at least.  

No Birthday Left Uncelebrated

Recently I made it an undeclared goal of mine to leave no birthday “in my jurisdiction” uncelebrated. Maybe you can try it, too.  

First, I’d recommend figuring out who’s in your jurisdiction: Who do you see on any kind of regular basis? Who do you work with, play with, or serve? 

Then I’d recommend collecting birthdays. I know you’re already thinking, “That’s what Facebook is for, buddy,” but humor me! Imagine the difference it might make for you to ask out loud for people’s birthdays, and to start keeping a list. What kind of care might that communicate?  

Finally, write a card, buy a cupcake, put a candle on a slice of pizza. I don’t really care what you do, but find a way to nod to the ritual. Get over yourself and sing the song! I hear that 74% of us like it.  

We all have a jurisdiction, with people in it who want to know that we’re glad they exist. I like to picture this in watercolor circles, bleeding out to the social edges of our lives until colors start to blend like Venn diagrams. This isn’t a call to paint the whole world – I’m just asking you to paint your little part of it. 

Join DJ and us at The Hopeful Neighborhood Project in letting no birthday go uncelebrated! Download this free pdf to write down the birthdays in your neighborhood and how you are going to celebrate them!