Birthday Block

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: Birthdays have always been my nemeses. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate them for marking yet another year. I (so far) have had no problems with getting older and in fact quite enjoy celebrating my "receiving day," as I've heard it best described. Further, I truly love congratulating others on adding one more year of wisdom and memories to their repertoire. It brings me great joy to do so. It's just that I'm chronically birthday-challenged. As in, I'm terrible about remembering birthdays. Pathetically so.

(I should note that in other areas, I'm a fully functioning, responsible adult, which is what makes this whole thing that much more baffling...and frustrating.)

To be fair, I do usually remember that someone's birthday is coming up a few weeks in advance. I think to myself, "Kels, it's time to buy a card that perfectly captures your love and affection for said friend or family member."

And often this works well for me, but things tend to fall apart after that. Once the day grows near, that birthday flies out of my brain faster than my dog chasing a bunny in an open field. One minute I'm on top of things, proudly buying, addressing AND stamping that card, and the next, it's like the birthday never existed. Poof! Black hole of birthday-ness. (The worst was the year I remembered to call only one of the two dear friends who share a birthday. How does that happen??? I could blame it on the fact that I was in college and probably didn't get much sleep the night before, but to be honest it's more likely the work of what I've come to think of as my "birthday block".)

Faced with the embarrassment of ongoing failure on the birthday front, the only logical solution to stay in touch with all those to whom I really WANT to send cards and birthday well wishes was to create a series of electronic reminders. I thought I'd hit the jackpot when I discovered "happybirthday.com" a few years ago. Simply enter in the dates of your chosen and it will send you friendly reminders several times before the hallowed day. It couldn't be easier or more efficient! The messages arrived something like this:

Birthday Reminder
"Dave's birthday is in 14 days! You should buy a card."

Then, "Dave's birthday is in 2 days! You'd better hope you sent that card. If not, it's priority mail for you, sister!"

And then finally, "Dave's birthday is tomorrow! Did you mail the card? Are you sure? Don't forget to call him, you idiot!"

Okay, so perhaps the italicized portions of the quotes are a stretch, but you get the gist of my internal struggle with each of these steps. Without help, it is sadly only too likely that one or more will be omitted in the process.

I was so in love with the cheerful and helpful reminder service that it became my lifeline. It worked smashingly for quite some time. I was a responsible correspondent when it came to birthdays. Cards were purchased to portray the appropriate sentiment. They were mailed ON TIME! Phone calls were made to express love and thoughtfulness. And then, recently, it all came to a screeching halt. Those helpful reminders that used to empower me have become completely useless. They now arrive looking like this:

Birthday Reminder
" 's birthday is in 7 days!"

Wait, what? WHOSE birthday is in 7 days? Who is " 's"? And now instead of faithfully executing the appropriate birthday preparation steps, I'm scrambling trying to figure out whose birthday it is that I'm now in grave danger of missing.

For what it's worth, I'm also pretty convinced that I'm being taunted by a techie somewhere who deleted all the names in my account and is rubbing his hands together in glee at my confusion. "He" also still adds the chipper salutation at the end reminding me to have a "great day!" Well, it's kind of hard to have a great day when you're taunting me, happybirthday.com. I think it's time for us to break up. Unless of course all this time you've been trying to passively aggressively break up with me?

"Kelly, it's not you, it's me. It's just too much work holding your hand to make sure you remember these birthdays. First you need advance warning, and then I have to get on you about buying a card, and THEN, you might forget to mail it...and don't even get me started on nagging you to call the day of the event. What do you think I am, your WIFE?!."

So now I can add another layer of degradation to my struggle. Even the birthday service didn't want me anymore. Score another round for the birthday block: I am humiliated again.

P.S. For those of you whose birthdays I have recently forgotten, you now know it's because you went from being [Insert your name here] to [ 's ], and for that I'm sorry. I am working on another - and hopefully better - system as we speak!