I promise it's short.

Birthdays are very strange things, when you really think hard about it.

It means that none of your ancestors were harmed in any way that would prevent them from reproducing properly. Which means that all of them reached puberty and got it on before going on to the next wonderful world of the afterlife.
There was no "crushing", "maiming", "eviscerating", "defenestrating", or "blunt testicular traumatizing" involved.
It also means that during the next 9 months after they "got it on", you as a sperm were lucky enough to squirm and find a wonderful receptacle of an egg (to get on your feminine side). It also meant that you were faster, better, perhaps larger and more ruthless, and thus were the first to get there, flushing the millions of other losers down the drain.
It also means that as a random collection of cells, you were able to come together in a power-rangers style assortment of interlocking specialized cellular systems to not only provide vital organ function but also more than enough so that you could see, hear, taste, feel, walk, breathe, eat, drink, sleep, and otherwise enjoy life in the way that about 70% of the rest of humanity is allowed to do.
It also means that you have been breathing, eating, and touching a world that is full of probably-lethal bacteria, and surviving. 

There are dozens and dozens of unnoticed miracles of life that we have all probably experienced at this point in time. But you know, numbers mean crap when you think about it, so let us just agree upon the fact that you have achieved an arbitrary level of growth in terms of physical, mental, and psychological maturity. You have, in a certain sense, "leveled up", and have grown in your stats by some predetermined yet random roll of God's (for that matter, any other greater-than-life manifestation that could somehow determine or at the very least witness the laws of physics put forth) million-sided set of dice. You have kicked it into the next gear, set yourself up for the next course, screwed the clock up another 365 and one-fourth of a day to the next wonderful moment where you can stick flaming shafts of wax-filled goodness into a circular (or square, if you're the Goldilocks variety) block of sugary confection ladled with the love and joy your loved ones could shell out with a 500 peso bill and say to yourself that you'll let it go just this one time and silently promise to yourself to get on that exercise machine and sweat your behind off for the next two weeks. 

In a sense, birthdays can be very meaningless events. But we all know that man is not made of logic alone, and that because there is some magic in the beginning of a life, there must also be a trace of that magic when people come together to be able to remember that life as it trudges, crawls, runs, walks, flies - so long that it continues, and that it continues with the pride that is passed down to us from the parents who have birthed us.

Happy birthday Jess, and I'm saying happy birthday because there is nothing you could be more proud of than the day you were born.

- Lence. Who is not a Copy-Paste Pirate. I made this myself. I wasted your time.