Emily’s Very Bali Birthday

“Does it feel like your birthday?” I asked Emily.

“No, not really. Lucy was asking me if we made any special birthday plans and I told her everyday feels like my birthday!”

That’s the thing about this year.

My birthday back in Samos only felt like my birthday because Emily kept reminding me – plus I got some great emails and e-cards.

The fact is we do fun, amazing, out of the ordinary, once in a lifetime stuff all the time. It’s hard to make a birthday stand out.

Nonetheless, it’s important to try. Emily and I spent time on this for weeks. Since we began the trip in Mediterranean Turkey in the middle of July, Emily has been wanting to do water sports – jet skiing, parasailing, etc. Only it cost a fortune throughout Region 1. On Patmos, a 15 minutes of water skiing cost almost $100.

We decided to wait until we could find a better deal. Naturally, Nepal and India were not water sports havens. So, it rested until Region 3.

Here we are on an island where a package of three activities – jet skiing, parasailing and a thing called a flying fish – cost $35 per person. It seemed meant to be.

Until we awoke to intermittent bouts of hard downpour. The weather forecast said the rain would stop by noon, but that it would remain cloudy throughout the day. We called the water sports company and they said that the afternoon was still fine for activities, but that parasailing might be off for the rest of the day.

Emily decided to reschedule for Sunday when Bali is slated to have a perfectly sunny day.

Luckily, my wife isn’t hard to please – especially on Bali. We did a little work, cleared our schedules and went to Ubud for three of Emily’s favorite things: sushi, shopping and a massage/hair cream bath (an hour of shampooing, conditioning, and hair washing accompanied by continual scalp, shoulder and neck massage).

I think she feels satisfied with the way her birthday went – and in the end, she may have made big picture gains as she got a day of “the trifecta” as well as a day of water sports to be followed by a beachside BBQ seafood feast.

In the end, a dark turn in the weather brightened Emily’s week.

There must be something about dark clouds and our birthdays. The same thing happened to us on my birthday in ordinarily sunny Greece. Instead of taking a boat tour around Samos and swimming at nearby islands, we rented a car and drove around the island for day. The shelter of the car was the perfect way to stay out and about despite intermittent rains and terrible humidity. We enjoyed a great waterside lunch and got to know Samos very well that day.

Perhaps it was the inability to do whatever we liked that helped make these days stand out. In a life of almost continual adventure and celebration, limitations turned good are a contrast – and joy unto themselves.

There’s not much else to say about Emily’s birthday other than the sashimi came in huge cuts, the shopping went very well (especially for her) and neither of us have a care in the world after our massages.

However, there are a few things to say about Emily at age 33.

I know people who look at their birthdays as a time of serious reflection. Birthdays become this ordeal in which they take inventory of their lives, grapple with their mortality and ask themselves horrible questions like, “Am I old?” “What am I doing with my life?” “Have I achieved enough?” and “How did I get to be this old?”

Emily wisely asks none of these questions. They aren’t even in her nature. Without effort, without thought and without doubt, Emily continuously looks at each age, each day, and each opportunity and says, “It’s the best thing, EVER!”

Emily is someone worthy of envy because she easily finds joy and beholds wonder. I doubt if it has ever crossed her mind that the future could never be as good as the past or that she’s running late for a life milestone. Emily runs – nay, walks – at her own pace and along her own path. She takes great pleasure in every step, and every sight along the way.

Birthdays are just an excuse to celebrate and enjoy with others to Emily. Because everyday is a celebration of life, the next step in her journey and “The best thing EVER!”

Happy Birthday, Emily!

Sent from my iPad