Wondering about my birthday surprise

One of the things that I joke about is that every year, the universe gives me a birthday surprise---a big hulking problem that is going to take me a year to deal with. The surprise gift from the universe does not necessarily arrive on my birthday (though it has revealed itself on my birthday on at least one occasion); there is a month's window for it to sneak into my life. (The earliest it has shown up is a month before, the latest a week afterwards.)

Maybe it is just an artifical pattern that I am seeing. After all, my birthdays were never pleasant when I was a kid. My wife has tried to reprogram me---with limited success. I still dread birthdays.

My childhood programing consisted of "You are a big boy now; and due to the monetary situation in the family, you need to just accept that you are getting nothing for your birthday. Well, maybe a pair of socks, but nothing more." Holidays also were a drag for me...I do not remember not knowing that there was no Santa Claus and Easter Bunny.

Somehow the universe did not get this memo. Now, as I said it might be an artificial pattern. I could just be tying events that happen around my birthday into one big delusion: a delusion that says that some aspect of the universe amuses itself by sending me problems to solve.

Now, I will admit that in the long run, some of the problems I have been gifted with turn out to be benefits...but it takes a long time to get there from the initial KABOOM!

Over the last ten years, I have been gifted with two relationships (one of which is my wife), a mortgage, unemployment, college, and some lovely family problems. Oh, and possibly a lodge. As I said, some turn out to be benefits; it just takes awhile to get there from the initial explosion.

I had astrologers look at my solar return charts, but have yet to find one that is accurate enough to help me deal with the annual boom, not alone predict the form it is going to take. I am not sure if I want to argue that this is purely astrological. I suspect that part of it is initiatory, part of the package of being a working magician.

Anyway, in the next few weeks, if the past decade or so has been any indiciation of future trends, as my sun returns to its natal position, I will be gifted with a doozee of a problem. I am prepared...I am equipped with a monkey launcher, and have a bagful of evil flying monkeys just ready to send in the general direction of the favor. I may be delusional, but I am a barrel of laughs to be around.