Today is my half-birthday. Half-birthdays are, of course, 6-months away from someone’s real birthday which makes my birthday May 29th. Half-birthdays have always fascinated me. I used to talk about them as a joke but that just caused me to think about them more than I ever should have.
The trick is that, much like regular birthdays, half-birthdays are relative to someone’s actual birthday. Birthdays are every 12-months, every not 365/366 days. Therefore, half-birthdays are every 6-months, not every 182.5/183 days. It’s just like how people born on leap day only have birthdays every four years. Sure, leap babies age in the eyes of the law but I will not recognize those birthdays unless it’s actually February 29th.
Anyways, people born on the 29th – 31st of certain months don’t get half-birthdays. Those birthdays are: May 31st, August 29th – 31st (except leap years for those August 29th babies), October 31st, and December 31st. Weird, right? Even weirder, leap babies have more half-birthdays than real birthdays. Four half-birthdays for every one real birthday. Add up all those halves and they aren’t any younger than regular people.
photo credit: Chocolate Fudge Cake via photopin (license)
