Why I Decided Not To Make A Big Deal Out Of My “Big Birthday”
Facebook pages are full of celebrations for big birthdays — usually the ones with a zero after them.
You hear about people renting a house on Nantucket with their closest friends, splashing out at a globally famous restaurant, climbing the world’s highest peaks or at least going skydiving.
Rarely does anyone let a “big birthday” go by without some kind of magnificent hoopla. But that’s what happened to me this year.
As it turned out, my non-event turned out to be as satisfying as if I had planned something that would have looked fabulous on Instagram.
But, that wasn’t how I expected to mark this birthday. I’ve had a couple of major celebrations for “big birthdays” in the past, and was fully expecting to experience one this year.
One time, I put on a dance party in Washington, D.C., with a collection of family and friends from college, and the years right after. Another year, I rented a movie theater and showed Casablanca, accompanied by brunch and a wine tasting at my house afterwards.
(It was interrupted by a big news story on the auto beat, which I covered for The New York Times. When I told my editor that the story was taking me away from a houseful of party guests, he said, “Happy birthday. You’re on Page…
