The point of birthday celebrations?

Are they supposed to be happy or sad occasions?

I guess it's all about what you think and how you look at life.  Me?  I tend to get all moody around birthdays, gloomy and feeling worthless.  I really don't know why.  Maybe it's just a self defense mechanism against being hurt again and again on that day that for most of my childhood was supposed to be a happy and joyous day.

Yes, I made it another year.  Hell as of tomorrow anyhow, I"ll officially be 34 years old, the key word here is old.

I suppose I'm not doing so badly.  I've got a house of sorts, a decent vehicle, three wonderful healthy boys, a wife who, (when she can get far enough out of her own head to remember my feelings), truly cares about me, (I think, see the first paragraph above about negativity).

But I'm getting older, I suppose I could consider myself to be around 40% of the way through my life at this point.  By the time the kids hit the end of high-school I'll be closer to the 60-70% mark, unless one of those unknown triggers is going to take me out earlier.

I often pray that such a thing will happen, but I'm not so sure that I believe in that.  I mean sure at the moment, I'm as bleak as can be, but then when I'm sitting back here and trying to make sense of it all, the reason and the overwhelming fatalistic mindset is hard to recognize as one coming from inside of me.  I wonder where I'm going with this all?

I'll be back in a short while, I need to think.

I am feeling like crap. It's my birthday and we're too broke to do anything, no presents, nothing.

My mother remembered and got me a kicking card, with a little amount of spending cash, but that'll have to go to the fuel tanks in the truck, as we're too strapped right now to cover. Oh and the fuel will be getting burned in order to help out cleaning out wife's little sister's house that she has to abandon for personal growth reasons. (I know that's kinda vague, but it's not my story, I'll write on it later maybe, but not for public consumption, sorry guys).

Anyhow, the point wasn't about all that, well, not directly anyhow. The round about thing here is this. I submitted an entry the other day to a quick little contest, not much for a purpose, just a quick challenge for coming up with an opening paragraph. So I did it. Put three and three together and came up with nine as it were.

But then today I find out that I didn't win the challenge, not even a mention, but to put it in perspective, only three got mentioned from the 13 or so that were actually valid entries. so I shouldn't be surprised.

I need to find a place that can help with useful reviews, so that I can get better at this writing thing.

And I need to concentrate on the smaller stories first, working my way up to the larger ones later on I suppose. The errors in translation would be a good start, it'll fit two of the submission places I have in mind, it's a story about the trials of popularity, leadership, and lone wolf type individuals being put in a place where they are required to lead the way out.

Anyhow, it's now time to stretch out and try to sleep a little before tomorrow hits my up side the head.