Just another lowkey birthday

According to my parents, I was born at midday, on 16 September – thirty-something years ago. People say that if you’re born in daytime, you’re bound to be timid – I suppose I do have some ‘timid’ streak in me. I wouldn’t call it timidity though, more like being extra-careful and extra-sensible. 😀 If I were timid, I wouldn’t have plonked myself out of Indonesia and planted myself in Adelaide, nor would I have travelled solo all the way beyond the Arctic Circle. I am brave in some areas and overly careful in others – how can I explain that at my age, I am still yet to have my first car? 😮

So, this is my birthday – another lowkey birthday. Yani called me at midnight to wish me a happy birthday and after that barrages of Facebook messages started to pour in, as well as a couple of text messages on my phone. I couldn’t take a day off unfortunately as I have heaps of work at the moment. The folks at work were kind enough to have morning tea to celebrate my birthday – one of the consultants also has his birthday today – so it was a double celebration today. We had mini pies and sausage rolls – very Aussie indeed. 🙂 I ended up staying until about 6.30pm and then headed home. I thought about having dinner with Yani – but the ongoing rain dampened my mood a bit and made me a wee melancholic, so I told her that I would head home. Tomorrow the folks from church are planning to see ‘Up’ so the merriment can happen tomorrow or during the weekend.

However, just to do something a bit different, I stopped by the shopping centre near home and had my dinner at Nando’s. Nothing special, but at least I didn’t have instant noodle for dinner on my birthday. 😛 I had three Subway cookies to close off my dinner for $2 and walked back home slowly. It was quite therapeutic really – walking slowly in the rain. The sound that the water made on my umbrella was calming. There was a sense of serenity as well in the neighbourhood – it’s as if the houses, the trees and the streets were letting the sky washing them gently.

Birthdays are usually quite lowkey in our family – the only birthday that I had a major celebration when I was a boy was my 12th birthday, I think. I invited some of my friends from school to come over to my house. I was a bit embarassed because my shophouse was a bit modest compared to my friends’ houses. Nevertheless, I had great memories in that shophouse – I did have a great childhood. The other memorable birthday was when I reached 21 – I was all alone in Adelaide already at that time, feeling homesick. I remember posting a message in a bulletin board, telling everybody that I was all alone and feeling sorry for myself on my birthday. Because of that posting alone, I received a lot of emails back from people all over the world. Some just teased me for being a sook, the majority wished me a happy birthday. I still keep in touch with some who have become great friends all these years.

So yes, that’s my birthday today. Happy birthday to me.