{"id":6324,"date":"2025-10-14T09:33:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:33:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6324"},"modified":"2025-10-14T09:33:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T07:33:56","slug":"old-mans-birthday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6324","title":{"rendered":"Old Man’s Birthday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A birthday only tends to come around once a year or so. Twice, perhaps, depending on your spiritual bend. More, I suppose, if you\u2019re a grifter who travels a lot or who has a several separate groups of friends who never talk to each other directly. It\u2019s not a bad idea if you want to score on gifts or free drinks, but this level of lying in permanence would drive me to drink \u2013 and not in a healthy way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the ** years I have spent on the planet as a cognizant human being, I have noticed that people deal with their birthdays in very different ways. There are those who jealously guard the occasion as if it\u2019s a deposit of gold or the location of a store in Prague that has good peanut butter. To address these guys\u2019 birthdays is seen as an insult of high magnitude. Others come in the opposite with a lot of look at me look at me look at me. One girl on Facebook put out a reminder a week before: You guys, it\u2019s my birthday week!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To be honest, this sort of crave for attention draw raises both of my eyebrows. But I lower them quickly. When it comes to your birthday \u2013 the one day a year where you are special \u2013 then all is game and no holds shall be barred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I tend to keep my birthdays lowkey. I\u2019d say I don\u2019t like a lot of fanfare, but the truth is, I have trouble remembering names and, should I partake in the whiskey too much, events or ways home. A small shindig means fewer people to apologize to the next day for social faux-pas \u2013 if it\u2019s even necessary. This is what I like: a few people who know what they are getting into, who are old enough not to care, who will drink as much as me, and just as likely forget what it is I might be apologizing for. These are my people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, if I have a birthday tendency, it\u2019s the self-allowance. It\u2019s the \u2018go ahead! It\u2019s your birthday!\u2019  attitude. When I was younger and had more time, better balance, fewer responsibilities, and no ability for good judgment, this attitude would be applied to drinking. Start at noon? Why not! And so days started earlier and ended later. (read: I also had stamina). For a decade or two, my birthdays ended the following morning and often with a double-stacked hangover. Given the right circumstances, it started up again for day two. And in something like a deranged Easter celebration, it might even creep into day three. Why not? It\u2019s my birthday. (i.e. was \/ three days ago).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is no longer the case. Sure, there\u2019s a bit of partying and tippling. But it\u2019s mostly contained to a night with friends and the next morning is usually filled with ibuprofen and liquid IV and lots of television. No, now my relaxed birthday attitude is applied to food, relaxation, and the ability to completely avoid the world. You want another chocolate? Sure you can! It\u2019s your birthday! Have three! Read that book. OK! Hey, what\u2019s three chocolates without a fourth!? Maybe I\u2019ll order food to go with my book. This is great. My phone\u2019s ringing. Oh well, I\u2019m reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was glorious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Were my 25-year-old-self to witness my spectacular birthday plans, he would cry. He would also be drunk, so crying would come easier to him. What a loser, he might exclaim. Then he\u2019d go for a three-day bender that would mess his head up for a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh, I know it\u2019s an old story: person grows up. But it\u2019s one that feels quite nice to the grown-up. There\u2019s a quiet joy in knowing deep within yourself that you derive joy from simpler things than you used to. While I was younger, a night had to be filled with excitement and people. I was out so often that my apartment forgot what I looked like. Nowadays, excitement is cleaning the flat before bed, resting on the couch after a long day of work and feeling content. It may sound boring \u2013 and maybe it is \u2013 but it\u2019s absolutely perfect. Especially if you can eat naughty food along with this perfection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A birthday only tends to come around once a year or so. Twice, perhaps, depending on your spiritual bend. More, I suppose, if you\u2019re a grifter who travels a lot or who has a several separate groups of friends who never talk to each other directly. It\u2019s not a bad idea if you want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6325,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Oreo_cookies_ad1961.jpg?fit=740%2C980&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1E0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6324","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6324"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6326,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6324\/revisions\/6326"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}