Philosophy of Pool Bobbing

I love my birthday. I like having people make a big deal about my existence. I like the cards, and the singing and the food and wearing stupid hats at Mexican chain restraints while middle class white kids whose parents are making them learn “work ethic” by having a part time job, sing Feliz Cumpleaños to me in horrible Spanish. I like pictures of myself (even in said hat) and I like presents.
I have heard this rumor that I am no longer supposed to like my birthday. There is some point were I am supposed to start hating as a symbol of my impending death. I am choosing to look at my birthday as a marker of success. I mean, for better or worse, I have made it through another year. Whatever I think about becoming older or my prospects for the future, I have at least managed to remain alive for another 365 days. Isn’t that worth something? It is a personal record to say the least, right?
So maybe I am getting older. So maybe my prospects are shrinking and my thighs are expanding. But I have a plan; and more importantly, I have a goal.
I think we learn to hate our Birthdays because they become a reminder of the things we cannot dream about anymore. I have given up my 4 year old dream of growing up to be the worlds fastest flying Pegasus. I have moved on from my middle school dream of following in Mariah Carey’s footsteps. I have left behind the high school idea that I could start a non-profit and stop world hunger. I have even modified my college goals of becoming a lawyer who stamps out injustice during the week and writes thought provoking, life altering, philosophically entertaining novels on the weekends. But my birthday is not about the limitations that my previous life choices have put on me. No, it is about achieving my ultimate life goal of becoming a Pool Bobber.
Not since the moment that this goal has entered my realm of consciousness have I even once wavered in my dedication to achieving it. I remember that during a visit to the YMCA one summer my friend and I were shocked to see the fattest women in the world waddle out in a line onto the pool deck. Their pasty, cellulite pocked flesh moved about their frames in rippling waves as they walked. Their shamelessness struck me as courageous. With each thunderous step they proudly declared their right to wear a bathing suit. As they walked past the lap pool to the smaller “therapy” pool I realized that these women have more self esteem than anyone I had ever seen. They were not hurrying past us, ashamed of themselves. They were not detoured by our open mouthed stares. They seemed safe and comfortable in their mountains of flesh. Once they reached to therapy pool they wrapped pieces of special foam around their arms and one of them turned on a boom box. She then began to yell over the music; instructing the others to do hokey-pokey type moves bringing their arms in and out of the water as they bounced up and down slowly in time to the music.
I decided then and there that this was what I wanted out of my life. I wanted to gorge myself on all life had to offer. I wanted to bloat myself with the spoils of a life well lived. Then I wanted to walk around proudly and quietly enjoying the enormous mass of all I had collected. I wanted to whorishly display it to everyone who would look. I wanted to bounce up and down, dancing and splashing in my gluttonous collection of self and surroundings with my friends.
That is why I will continue to celebrate my birthday every year as long as I live. Because no matter how old I am, no matter how many milestones have come and gone, I still have that picture of those women in my mind. I will celebrate my path to Pool Bobbing as it unfolds and once I reach my goal, I will celebrate every step I took to get there.