Happy birthday, love.

Today is A’s birthday! You’d never know though from the days we celebrate his birthday on. See, A is a very busy person. AND, sadly, until he met me, he never thought much of birthdays, and therefore never realized the importance of a BIRTHDAY. A birthday in my family is the most wonderful day one can ever imagine. You literally get anything you want, and all your silliness is forgiven for this just one day. In my case, that’s a lot of silliness! So, when I grew up, birthdays were just everything to me. And, you guessed correctly, they still are.

When I met A, and I realized how he couldn’t care less about his birthday, I really had to take a step back and asked myself if I ever could be with a person, who doesn’t take birthdays half as serious as I do? (Spoiler: yes, yes, I can!). But I knew, that we had to fix this not-caring-that-I-am-getting-older-don’t-remind-me-about-my-birthday-BS real quick! But see, in order to make the biggest deal about someone’s birthday, you kind of have to be close to them at least on that day… Well, so I thought… But let’s not jump ahead. Here is a quick rundown of the years we have been together and what A did for his birthday.

2009 – A decided to donate a bunch of money to charities who are fighting the gender-equality-fight (and yes, it is a fight, not a negotiation, not a discussion, a fight!) and he got all his friends and family to donate to his charity of choice too and so that’s what I did. While he was in Philadelphia and I was in Austria.

2010 – Sadly, I have no idea, what A did this year. I tried so hard to remember, but nothing came to mind, which led me to the conclusion, that most likely A did nothing. Well, other than getting ready to visit me in Austria a couple weeks after. But yes, I don’t think A actually did anything for his birthday that year and what did I do? Well, if I remember correctly, I invited him to the Donauturm in Vienna, we had a little dessert-date together, while A was trying so hard not to get motion sick.

2011 – This was A’s first birthday in Oslo and I had the greatest of plans of making him a birthday cake (which I did) and we watched Lost, which up to this point I had to refuse to do, but A was determined and probably also wishing he could be on Lost, as it was snowing cats and dogs (?) outside.

2012 – When A and I used to live in the US, we would go to the mall ever so often and A would gaze longingly at the kitchenware at William Sonoma. For some odd reason, he thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to teach me about the dos and don’ts of cookware. It was ridiculous. I’ve never heard someone speak so much about something material that they wanted so badly, and then torture themselves, staring at the cookware and – finally – walk out of the store and buy nothing. This had many reasons, but mainly, it was the cost. We were living from the hand to our bellies, basically, everything up to this point, went towards rent, basic necessities and seeing each other three times a year. This, however, was the first time – ever – where I could actually get A something really nice… It took me months to save up, but eventually I  was able to afford the biggest Le Creuset pot the store had. Never knew, kitchenware could be so expensive… We were just coming back from Bergen that weekend and my dad was visiting for a half-marathon we ran together, so I didn’t really have time to hide the present in a clever spot, so I just put it in the oven and asked A if he could make dinner for me (on his birthday!). But being a sweet and amazing then-boyfriend, now-husband, he did and he was almost crying tears when he saw his present. I think this is also when A realized, what birthdays really were about: Elaborate gifts (and experiences! Have you eaten A’s eggplant parm?!) from your partner, who will stop at nothing to make sure that he gets what he wants.

2013 – I am not good at keeping secrets and have been pestering A with questions about the Kitchen Aid for WEEKS. I also had the Kitchen Aid hidden in a suitcase (!) underneath my bed for about a month and a half and every day I was hoping A wouldn’t accidentally open the suitcase to go on one of his travels and find my present… So on December 3rd, I couldn’t wait any longer anymore and I just had to give the present to him, regardless of him wanting the present or not. Which he did, but he later claimed that I forced him to open his birthday present a day early, as if I EVER would do such a thing…

2014 – I was in Hong Kong, anxiously awaiting A’s arrival (which only took another 3 weeks at that point). A was in Galway and I had the glorious idea to surprise him with a little gift-basket. So I called a local business and asked them if they could help me out and they did, in the grandest way possible. They followed all my instructions and surprised A in his hotel room with a huge basket filled with local meats and cheeses and bread and wines and chocolates. He had his own little fancy lunch/dinner in his room, enjoying every bite of it. Later he told me, that he knew that something like this was going to happen, when I asked him why, he said that I wasn’t very subtle when I told him, not to eat lunch and not to leave the room between 12.00 and 12.30. I also had asked him about different foods and whether he liked them or not, so yeah. Captain Obvious right here.

2015 – A was in Bologna that day, so we couldn’t celebrate his birthday together on the actual day. Which was a blessing in disguise, as I was trying to survive exam-week. But be that as it may, we celebrated A’s birthday in the movie theater, watching Star Wars – episode 7 on December 19th . I don’t think I have ever seen A have so many emotions over a movie, but he was blown away!!! May have not been the most elaborate gift, but he was so excited that I was willing to go with him to see this movie, that he didn’t care…

2016 – Last year, A celebrated his birthday alone in Connecticut. Since I didn’t know until two days earlier, that this was going to be the case, I didn’t have a lot of time to really plan his birthday. But I gave the address to a place, I wanted him to check out. I asked him not to look it up, and just drive to the address and I promised him, his mind will be blown. A was skeptical and reluctant to say the least, but he followed my instructions. A eventually found himself at the Dinosaur State Park, where the largest dinosaur tracks of North America were found! And although we couldn’t go together, I knew that this still is A’s most favorite present he has ever gotten.

Now – Last Friday, I took A out for his birthday dinner, because – you guessed correctly – he isn’t actually in Oslo for his birthday. He said something about heading to Macau, to a conference, because it’s a very important conference that he doesn’t want to miss because it’s everything he ever wanted… But anyways, so we went out for dinner and then got dessert. He got a few smaller gifts for his music (yes, he started taking up music again!!!!), we will go see Star Wars in a couple weeks and there is one more surprise, that he doesn’t know yet about, but I’ll tell you this much: dinosaurs. Needless to say, it’s going to be epic!

For now, since I can’t tell you when or where A will see his birthday present, let’s all just wish my wonderful husband, partner and best friend an amazing birthday!