Happy Birthday to me.

Every year, a week or so before my birthday, cards begin arriving. It always takes me by surprise. Not that people don't or shouldn't send cards but they are sending them to a woman who rarely remembers to send good wishes in return at the appropriate month and day.

That's the surprise. People plan for this. They shop for a card, write nice sentiments inside, address and stamp the card and get it to the post office or mail box. All at the approximate day of my birth.

I, on the other hand, have, just today, looked at a birthday list I have penned onto the back of the calendar. I have already missed two October birthdays of friends and the November friend one coming up will, in spite of all energy and purpose toward the opposite, pass by without notice until December when I will lament the missing of yet another friend's special day.

You would think that with the passing years there would be so many fewer friends to keep track of that it would be easier to remember but with Facebook that is not the case. This year dozens of well wishers sent notices through Facebook. Thoughtful people, people who value relationships, people who live life with a purpose of keeping in touch with other humans on their special days.

Drat, I wish I were one of them. Is it lame to take this one opportunity to wish all my friends and family a happy birthday on whatever day their celebration falls, and let that suffice for the next year?

Yeah, I thought so.