Today is my half-birthday.
How do I know? Well, today also happens to be my father’s birthday.
When I was little, I used to get ViewMaster slides for half-birthday presents on my dad’s birthday. My favorite ones involved Winnie-the-Pooh and the one I best remember is Winnie-the-Pooh and the Honey Tree.
Receiving these gifts made me feel special and connected. I was Daddy’s Little Girl and I thought the world of him. To this day, I feel a special connection to my father and have been missing him dearly this month.
You see, today marks the second anniversary of dad’s birth since his death. He died in late January of last year, missing his 80th birthday by just a few weeks.
What made matters worse is that I had not seen him for about 10 years before he died, and I’ve been having a hard time forgiving myself for that. There were extenuating circumstances that now no longer exist. But I take responsibility for being in those circumstances longer than I should have been.
But the past is the past. I know my father knows I love him. I know that he forgives me (if he even held it against me in the first place), so why not forgive myself?
And so, that has been my work for the last week or so … forgiving myself for decisions I would no longer make, but made in the past. The past is past. The future is bright and I now leave behind the baggage I no longer need to carry.
So back to half-birthdays.
Do you remember the unbirthday song from Alice in Wonderland? Its about celebrating all the days of the year that are not your birthday. Well you can think of a half-birthday as being an extra-special unbirthday.
So take a moment to celebrate your unbirthday. And, if you happen to share August 26 with me as your birthday, then Happy Half-Birthday to you!
Celebrities Celebrating Half-Birthdays Today
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Macaulay Culkin (Home Alone) |
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Chris Pine (Star Trek) |
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Branford Marsalis (Jazz saxaphonist) |
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Geraldine Ferraro (politician) |
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Shirley Manson (lead singer of Garbage — and we’re the same age, too!) |
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Brett Cullen (The Dark Knight Rises) |
Wondering when your half-birthday might be? I’ve always calculated it by adding six months to someone’s birthday. But if your birthday just so happens to be on August 29, 30 or 31, that doesn’t work. So you can use this half-birthday calculator instead.
Fun Half-Birthday Song
While doing some research on half-birthdays, I found this hilarious video … not that graphic, but definitely not for prudes. It’s about a guy who celebrates his girlfriend’s half-birthday by half-assing the sex. Check out the lyrics and the singer’s facial expressions … they had me laughing until tears formed!
This is a spoof of Jeremih’s song “Birthday Sex.”
