My Beddian Birthday Year
A couple of years ago, I pointed out to my husband that we had a cool thing going on. In the year 2022 my husband, who was born in 1960, was turning 62 years old. I was born in 1962 and was turning 60 that year, (kind of a unique flip-flop of what I would discover this year as being the Beddian Birthday.) So, when I realized that I’m turning 62 today and I was born in 1962, I wondered if there was a name for that. With as much information as I’ve found on the internet surrounding this once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, I’m surprised that I had never heard of it before. Many people have their Beddian birthday without ever knowing anything about it.
I was going to just share with you the same shortened overview of this unique occurrence as I read it from others (in my own words of course), but I wasn’t satisfied with only knowing the man for whom the name was given. I had questions and wanted to know more, until I found the article from The New Yorker by Lizzie Widdicombe titled A Firefighter’s Theorem, which all the other blogs had referenced. It is worth reading in full to get the whole story of how this discovery was made and exactly how it applies to each of us. (link)
When I shared this cool birthday trivia with my family, my youngest daughter said that she’ll have to live to the age of 97 to reach her Beddian birthday, but my granddaughter, who is turning 12 this year is sharing a Beddian birth year with me, having been born in 2012. We’ve already started making plans for things we can do to make it something special.
When we celebrate our birthday each year, it’s usually all about the day, or in my sister-in-law’s case, she celebrates her birthday the day before and the day after the actual day, except every four years when there is a February 29th, as she was born in a leap year. Even if our celebrations are planned for a day other than when the anniversary of our birth falls, most of our birthday wishes and greetings from family and friends come to us on our birthday. But having a Beddian birthday gives us “permission” to celebrate all year.
I like the post I read from gobeyond.blog where Omar C. Garcia posted that in his Beddian birth year, he planned a “To-Be” Bucket List instead of a “To-Do” Bucket list filled with adventures. His goal was to become a better husband, father, follower of Christ, and overall, a better person. That gives me pause as I consider what I can or should do during this year, or every year for that matter, to make it special and meaningful.
Check out thecalculatorsite.com if you would like to find out more about your birthday than you might already know, such as what day of the week you were born, your Zodiac and Chinese animal signs, how long in years, months, weeks, days, and hours you’ve been alive. It’s been fun to learn more interesting facts about birthdays.
I was aware of the Golden birthday, which occurs when your age and the date you were born are the same, but had forgotten, or never knew, what it was called. My Golden birthday fell when I was six and I’m sure I didn’t have any idea it was happening.
Over the years, I had come to feel like my birthday was just another day, especially because my husband’s birthday is only five days before mine, so my birthday has always, since our marriage, just been the leftovers (we celebrate together on his birthday but eat left-over cake for mine). Because of learning about my Beddian birthday this year, I feel a little bit excited to be having a birthday, and even getting older. So, happy birthday to all those who are celebrating a unique birthday this year (whatever year you may be reading this) as well as everyone who is simply celebrating a birthday! Birthdays are great, because living is a great blessing, although not always fun or easy. Make it count for something good!