October 17

Ever since I was a child I've loved my birthday. I thought that October 17, 1964 was the coolest combination of numbers and letters. It made me a Libra, the scales, which although I had very little interest in astrology, was also cool. It's during my favorite time of the year, the fall.

October 17 as a birth date also doesn't have the trouble that my siblings had. My middle sister's birthday is December 26, which she hated. She never got a birthday party, and her gifts were second thoughts--an extra gift thrown under the Christmas tree, wrapped with Christmas paper.

My older brother's birthday, even though he was born a few weeks earlier in the first week of December, was still too close to the holidays. My husband, whose birthday is November 25, which often falls on Thanksgiving, always complained that while his siblings could choose their birthday dinner, he couldn't--it was always turkey and pumpkin pie for dessert, which he hated.

I always had a birthday party that was well-attended because it wasn't close to any other important holiday, and no one was "too busy" to help me celebrate. It wasn't in the summer, like my youngest brothers (the end of May and early June), and birthdays for kids are always better during the school year, since they get celebrated in the classroom. It was far enough from anyone else in my family (between my mom in August and the two December birthdays), so I didn't have to share it with anyone. It was my birthday, and my birthday alone.

How lucky was I to be born prematurely. The cool thing about that is that it made my brother and I "Irish twins," since we were born ten-and-a-half months apart. When I figured that out, when we were about seven years old, I went up to him and had a marvelous time taunting him about it: "I'm as old as you are, I'm as old as you are!" It was the one and only thing I could taunt him about.

I love my birthday.