One Flight, Three Lessons

Life Update Imminent

Photo courtesy of author

Last week was my birthday.

I don’t like birthdays.

This isn’t some dramatic “I fear the passage of time” thing. It’s logistical. In the Netherlands, where I grew up, the birthday tradition is… different. If it’s your birthday, you bring the cake. You organize everything. You host. Then everyone sits in a circle, trying to make conversation while holding their drinks in one hand and a slice of cake in the other, smiling and trying not to spill anything.

When I was a kid, it was fine. My parents handled the cake logistics. I just showed up and unwrapped gifts. Low stress. High sugar.

But the older you get, the less anyone knows what to give you, and the more you’re the one doing the giving. What’s left is the obligation. And the cake.

So this year, I told my wife, “Let’s skip the whole thing and keep it simple. Just the two of us at our favorite Japanese restaurant.”

She agreed.

Sort of.

Flashback: 1986

A few months after I turned seventeen, Top Gun was released.

Like every other teenage boy at the time, I thought: yes. Fighter pilot. Aviators. Leather jacket. Motorcycle. Existential coolness. You…