Birthday History

As I’ve remarked before, I have a very spotty memory. Conversations stick very well; it’s very rare that someone will refer to a conversation we’ve had and I won’t remember it. My grasp of chronology on the other hand is horrendous. I have a very hard time remembering when things happened and I tend to merge similar events together. After compiling all those Halloweens a couple days ago, I decided to look at my birthdays.

1982-2000 I was at home. All these birthdays have pretty well merged together.

2001 – My freshman year of college. My main birthday experience was with my one sister who was also at BYU. I had 3 friends from home who were also in Provo, and the 4 of us had a “party.” I also celebrated with my FHE group, which coincidentally had 2 other people who were also born on March 22.

2002 – A mission birthday, which are pretty unremarkable. This one was funny because our dinner appointment couldn’t make it, so they dropped off tacos at our apartment. 3 of them. Who buys 2 twenty year old boys 3 tacos to share?

2003 – I’m pretty sure I was with my Mongolian companion who hated me. I didn’t tell him it was my birthday.

2004 – My friends tried to throw me a surprise party. Unfortunately they didn’t realize which door I most frequently used and I ended up surprising them. But it’s the thought that counts. Plus I’m pretty sure I got multiple Apple Crisps.

2005 – I spent most of the day filming my Cops parody. At the end of shooting we got together and had a little social gathering. I had to leave this to go home to meet with another friend with a mutual birthday. I’m pretty sure there was an amusingly awkward gift exchange (courtesy of my roommate’s lingering.)

2006 – Not much. A friend made me a cake which we ate together. I think I had dinner with my sisters.

2007 – My newfound Ohio friends attempted a Roast. Roasts are hard to do, especially if you’re avoiding dirty jokes, and when your subject is as infallible as myself. But kudos to them for trying.

2008 – Nothing.

By looking at these 8 days, I get some view of how the last 8 years have gone. Certainly, a day is a meager 365th of a year, but with my memory I need to use these benchmarks to measure of how I’m doing. Some of these birthdays were great, others not so much. What happened? I think a lot of it goes back to the cycles I wrote about a month ago. You’d hope that every year would be better than the last, but that’s not necessarily the case. If you’re not mindful of growing your social life, it’ll crap out on you. My posse has pretty well died, so I’ve got 5 months to build a new one. Applications are available.