A few days ago, I turned 30. It’s not quite as bad as I thought it would be.
On Saturday, we hosted a ‘Pirates vs Ninjas’ party for my birthday, and was the first time I’d been to a ‘themed’ party. Dallas dressed up as a pirate, and I wore some yoga pants and made a ninja mask out of a black t-shirt using the Shirt Ninja Guide. It turns out I was the only ninja there. The party was fairly low key (photos here), but there was plenty of drinking and fun to be had, two birthday cakes (made by Dallas), and very little drama. A big thanks to everyone who came out: Kevin & Allison, Brian, Bas, Jennifer, and Megan, Simon & Lauren, Walter & Andy, Jim, Young & Moon, Chris, Catherine, Charles (who I hadn’t seen in 12 years!), and Stan.
On Tuesday (my actual birthday), I received phone calls from my family members on both sides of the Atlantic, though it’s always weird to be answering the phone while you’re training someone at work, only to be serenaded over the speaker. One of the coolest surprises was that I got a birthday card from Mama C (Dallas’s grandmum), which referred to me as ‘Grandson’.
In the evening, I picked up my suit for the wedding this weekend, only to be held up by tornado sirens, heavy winds, and hail the size of bouncy-balls. I ended up having to park my bike and hide out in the local Sports Authority for 30 minutes, because involuntary lane changes are not my cup of joe. By the time I got home, things were still kind of ugly, so Dallas and I hid inside the house. Instead of going out for Indian as we planned, she made me some pasta, and inspired by my birdwatching teacher (Jerry), I read the first section of Walden. I forgot how much I enjoyed reading parts of this book in high school until he mentioned it as his inspiration to just go out and bird.
Between watching the Story of Stuff a few weeks ago, reading Walden, and reading the news about all of these terrible disasters around the world, I felt pretty distracted and selfish. A big source of guilt to me as far as this was my wishlist page. Why should I be asking for $300 motorcycle boots when people are losing everything left and right? I swore I would fix my wishlist to be less self centered, but I also promised myself that I wouldn’t use the internet on my birthday, so I didn’t get to it until yesterday. This not to say that I don’t immensely love the birthday gifts I received, I just feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I already have.
The first part of Walden, like many other books on religion and philosophy, talks about the trap of being owned by your belongings rather than the other way around. Thoreau takes pity on people who have inherited farms, toiling away day by day in order to not only eat, but to keep up with the Jones’s. Thoreau tries to sell you on the idea of working just enough to provide food, clothing, shelter, and water, and use the rest of the time to simply enjoy life. I think our culture has completely ignored the idea of minimalist living, and I’m not sure I can get by without my computer to be honest. It does help put things into perspective, and it’s a book I highly recommend.
It’s been an awesome birthday week. I feel a little bit more grown up already.
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