14,600 Days Old

All birthdays are special, but some seem more special than others. Lucky Jared gets to be the one and only birthday boy in our house and this year he turned forty!  We just had a small family celebration on the actual day; one of his favorite dinners was followed by his absolute favorite dessert.  

A few months before his birthday Jared mentioned wanting to have a party for this milestone birthday. I know myself and I know that whatever I planned would not be big enough for Jared.  I like things small and quiet because I don't feel comfortable with very many people.  Jared is my opposite. He loves people and talking and noise.  Everywhere we go he's got his head on a swivel looking for people he knows so he can say hello.  If I happen to see someone I know when I'm out I duck my head and hope they won't see me so I don't have to talk to them. So the plan was that I would throw the party but Jared would help me to plan the whole thing.

At the beginning of March, so just a few weeks before his birthday, Jared said to me, "I don't really need a party for my birthday.  It's no big deal."  Since I don't really like parties and small talk, I was only too happy to take him at his word - so no party for J.

Presents were easy this year.  Sometimes they are the hardest part of any birthday, but I knew what to get Jared!  He has been wanting a new bike for a while now and we had even been to the bike shop together so I knew exactly which bike to get him.  Then just four days - FOUR DAYS! -  before his birthday Jared said, "I don't really need that bike.  I don't even know if I'll have time to ride it once we move."  Wait, what?  Now what was I supposed to get him?  It was too late to order anything online, he doesn't like the style of German clothes or shoes, and the BX is basically full of overpriced junk - so no perfect present for J.

Still, I did the best I could and made a special dinner and dessert.  I found a few things that I thought he might like and wrapped them up but it wasn't anything super exciting or special.  I knew it wasn't the best birthday ever but I thought it was at least okay.  A few days after the big day we were driving to church and Jared said something along the lines of we need to talk later which is code for "you did something that bugged me but we can't talk about it now because the kids are around."  Without a doubt, that phrase has got to be my least favorite thing that Jared says.  I tried to get some clue out of him then so I wouldn't sit around wondering what I did all day.  When I asked him what I did all I could pull out of him was this sentence, "You didn't do anything."  I immediately knew that he was upset because I hadn't done enough for his birthday. We did talk later and Jared wasn't really upset anymore because, well, he told me not to have a party or buy a bike.

I shared the story with my friend Chanda a few days later and she suggested that we throw Jared a surprise party.  And what better way to make a surprise party work than to wait until a full month after his birthday to hold the party?  Ideally, we wouldn't have waited so long, but it's harder than one might think to find a free weekend that worked for both of our families.  We finally set a date, sent out invitations, and made our plan. The party was to be a Chanda's house and her husband Shaun invited us over for a game night as a way to get Jared there without raising his suspicions. On the day of the party Jared was home from work so I had to be a little sneaky to go and get things set up; I told him I was going visiting teaching - on the 2nd of the month - anyone who knows me knows that's not likely! There wasn't really a ton of prep to do, just buying and dropping off food and bringing over the pictures of Jared through the years that we were using for decorations.

I am not good at deception and keeping secrets.  If Jared had even the tiniest whiff of what was going on all he would have had to do was ask me what I was up to and I would have spilled the beans. Somehow I had successfully been playing it cool all day and everything was going according to plan.  Then with less than a half hour to go, Jared remembered something important he forgot to pick up at the BX earlier in the day and he LEFT THE HOUSE to go shopping.  I couldn't protest too strongly because that would give things away, but I was so upset.  In the end I decided that I would call Jared and tell him to meet us at Chanda and Shaun's house because it would make us less late.  It was kind of a good excuse because I hate to be late and Jared knows that, but it only served to annoy him and make him want to take his time even more.

It was kind of funny to walk up the stairs and see everyone there and then have to explain why Jared wasn't with me.  What wasn't funny was having to make small talk without Jared there to take the lead.  Being late and making small talk - it was like my own personal nightmare.   The only upside was the knowledge that Jared really had no idea about the party because there's no way he would have gone to the store if he had!  When Jared did finally arrive, forty-five minutes late, he was definitely surprised because he was speechless.  Anyone who knows Jared knows that is a rare occurrence.

While we were waiting for Jared everyone wrote down their favorite memory of Jared for him to read later.  It was nice for me to hear what other people remember and appreciate about Jared and I hope it was nice for him as well.  I'm pretty sure Jared had fun and the only disappointing part of the evening was realizing that we weren't actually going to be playing games!