The Best Birthday Party Ever

If the title of this entry sounds like that of a children's book, that's because today unfolded like one, cake and all.

My birthday was, of course, Friday. And even though the Family Guy rerun at 3:30 AM on Friday was funny, something about sitting alone on a couch typing about being alone on a couch didn't have the same magic as being surrounded by 40 of your closest friends and family who, gathered around a cake made for 70 people, stood shoulder to shoulder in order to form a wind-shield to keep the candles lit. I think it is something about the little ritual, the gathering, the lighting of the candles, the chanting of thanks and warm thoughts for one person, that on every birthday since I was 19 I've felt like I was in a movie. Because, really, where else but in a movie does one get to look around and see the cast of characters that form your whole world?

This was the biggest party ever held for me, and I only say it like that because of how, if you had invited the 8-year-old Martin to the party, he would never have believed that that many people would assemble for him. Birthdays were always intimate, immediate-family affairs. I never had or wanted the gaggle of friends that you see in movie birthdays - the kids running around with hats, the parents beleaguered as they run from one event to the next. The couple of times other boys came over, they felt to me like intruders. I remember one boy, for my 7th birthday party, guessed all of my gifts before I opened them. If he hadn't been so damn right about all of them it wouldn't have been so bad, but the kid had, for whatever reason, chose to use his powers for evil and so that was that until my 18th birthday. X-nay on the other-kids-ay. And I know Jessie won't believe me, but I seriously did not have any friends to invite until I was 14, and by that point I was still annoyed at Mr. Guessy Pants.

Which is why this evening, as I stood over my vast cake (courtesy of my sister Anna), the words "Happy 25th Birthday, Martin! And Happy Graduation!" scrawled across it in red icing between thick, colorful icing balloons, the twinkle of 25 candles dancing on its frosted surface, I looked around at my friends and family and knew that the wish I would make had already come true. My wish was standing around me, keeping out the wind.

I couldn't blow out all the candles, by the way. Up until this point my cakes have been circular objects with massive candle concentration, whereas this cake was like blowing across a frosted tundra. My breath, heaved out of my mighty chest, curled and licked across the dotted surface, but seriously who can blow out 25 candles spread out over 8 cubic feet of cake? And would you want to read the blog of someone containing that much wind? I think not.

We had copious amounts of food. My family may be a lot of things, but at least we know how to cook for a party. Jessie's mum made fruit salad and hot chicken salad (if there were a list of the Seven Wonders of Food, "hot chicken salad" would be like number 3 or number 4); Mom made burgers that Dad grilled to perfection; Jane brought yummy seven-layer dip; Anna brought the cake and massive quantities of drink; Aunt Sue brought her world-altering potato salad; Aunt Doris brought a vegetable medley, Grandma brought her chocolate-chip cookies... it was like wandering into that part of your head that remembers all of the good food you used to eat when you were a kid and then all of a sudden it was real, right there, and needing to be consumed by you right away.

I was worried about having enough things for people to do, but, as always, people are more adept at entertaining themselves and each other than I give them credit. I used to lament how I had friends who couldn't hang out with one another - I only saw one person at a time, avoiding the nigh cataclysmic chemical reactions that occurred between my friends and each other. Tonight, though, was the complete and utter negation of that Martin Theory. People hummed around, telling stories, introducing themselves, laughing. Mat is particularly gifted at this, the kind of comfortable in himself that people, my family and friends included, instantly like and appreciate. Bryan came too, rather bravely I thought, and had no problems mixing right in with people he didn't know, tossing around the Frisbee, talking music with those who would listen. Dodgeballs were brandished when Dave showed up, and we knew it was only a matter of time before some highly-entertaining physical activity would break out (the wrong-armed, stationary-foot game of dodgeball proved insanely amusing, and to Dave's credit he still managed to get me out...) Chris, to my constant delight, is the coolest 30-something that ever something'd thirty. And Dave Turka came all the way from Philadelphia with his girlfriend, managing, within minutes, to rescue the day not once but twice with his super-human climbing abilities. The only thing that could have made the evening better would have been Mark showing up. It's weird the times that you think to miss people. It's never when you expect.

This all stands in stark contrast to last night. Last night I went to Mat's at 1 AM, distraught. I said, "Mat, you are looking at a man on the verge of losing everything he has built above himself." I told him of my debt, of my fight with Jessie, of my fears about DC and the uncertainty surrounding the next days and weeks and years. I pointed to the sky and told of how, in one terrifying moment, I saw starlight on the glass panes in the tower I've built above myself, shaking in the storm winds, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before all that quivering glass came shattering down.

And that all may well be true. My seven-figure debt is an enormous burden. I don't have a job yet. I'm not in school. There are no guarantees in relationships. But what tonight made me realize, what perhaps Mat was wise enough to let me find out on my own, was that it was not what was above me I should be worrying about, but what was below me that I should be grateful for. The glass may shatter and fall, but it will fall onto sturdy stone, sink into butter-cream icing, be lit by candles and sung to by pillars, and then consumed, happily, by the loving ground on which I gratefully stand.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you. Because of you it was an awesome, wonderful, sunny day.

Your,
Martin