It Was My Birthday. What Do the Lunar Calendar and the Bee Gees Have to Do With It?

I just had a birthday.

I’m not telling you so you can send the obligatory “HBD!!! 🎉” text. I’m good. Really.

I’m telling you because birthdays are built-in pause buttons. And this one felt particularly on brand.

Lunar New Year ushered in the Year of the Fire Horse. I was born in 1978, also a Year of the Horse and if you believe the internet or the Chinese Zodiac, that makes me energetic, independent, occasionally stubborn, allergic to fences, and inclined to gallop toward whatever feels alive.  Spot on, right?

Also, fun fact: the Billboard #1 song the week I was born was Stayin’ Alive by the Bee Gees, which feels less like trivia and more like a life directive!  The last few decades have required stamina, a little disco strut, and the ability to keep moving even when the lights flicker.

For most of my life, I didn’t really know how I wanted to celebrate my birthday, with whom, or even if I wanted to at all. I’d brush the day aside like it was just another Monday and deflect and minimize, “nothing to see here.”

Which is ironic, because I have built a career around celebration.

One year, the first day of show rehearsals for a brand-new circus happened to land on my birthday.  I was in Florida without my husband. It was a long day with a new cast, new crew, lots of sweat, nerves, and repetitive choreography.

That night, following rehearsal and production meetings, the performers and crew gathered behind the venue by their trailers and motorhomes and threw me a birthday party.

Every act prepared a dish from their home country. Trays of food I couldn’t pronounce, desserts galore, and spices and flavors from 13 countries. I still don’t know how they found the time or energy after a full day of rehearsal.

They understood something I was still learning, that celebration is not about extravagance but thoughtful intention.

Birthdays are not just about the person aging. They are about the people who care about that person.

When someone I adore has a birthday, I want in, I want to honor them, to mark their existence, and say, I’m so glad you’re here and in my life.

This year, my husband and I, whose birthdays happen to be in close succession, turned it into a two-week rolling celebration. Not extravagant. Just intentional.

We each chose intimate evenings with people we love. Our kids wrote handwritten cards so earnest and empowering we all got teary. There is nothing like reading how your children see you, it is humbling and wildly motivating.

Then last night, a group of girlfriends insisted on taking me to dinner. Their schedules are hectic, new jobs, project deadlines, holiday breaks, college and high school acceptance letters arriving daily. Their schedules are full.

And still, they made time. That is the gift.

I’ve always been an extrovert. I’ve made friends easily. But friendships that feel like chosen family? Those came later. Wise, generous, deep, hilarious, impactful humans entered my orbit.

As a teenager, I was told friends come and go and family is forever. While that may be true, I’ve since realized that friends can become family and something you gather, grow, and tend to over time.

These friends of mine: remind me who I am when I forget.  Believe in me when I am full of doubt.  Push me outside my comfort zone.  Send books and soup when I’m sick.  Lend time, treasure, and talent without keeping score.  Bring the fun, always the fun!

In this Year of the Fire Horse, as I think about what I’m galloping toward next, I see clearly that relationships require oxygen, just like fire.

I could not have built them this way in my 20s or early 30s while I was building a family, a career, a life at full throttle.  Back then, the investment was obvious; degrees, titles, mortgages, a portfolio. We were building the architecture of our lives.

Only now I see another kind of investment, a quieter one, one that compounds with a different metric over time, because when the world shifts beneath us, it is not our LinkedIn profile we call upon, it is our people.

Friendship is not a portrait but a practice. And so are the most meaningful pivots. They are not always career overhauls or bold announcements. Sometimes they are simply the decision to invest your time, your energy, and your presence where it actually matters.

There is no aesthetic standard for real friendship. There is only engagement, vulnerability, authenticity, and showing up again and again. And respectfully, if you’re going to be my friend, you are also my chosen family. Which comes with one non-negotiable: you must know how to have fun at least occasionally. The disco ball is optional, the energy is not.

So here’s to another lap around the sun.

At 48, my fortune cookie tells me:
Keep galloping. You’re with the right herd.

And still, apparently, stayin’ alive!

From Your Biggest Champion,

Nicole