top of page

Birthdays



Every September arrives with the promise of a new beginning. Though some consider it harvest time, since I have a September birthday, it has always meant a fresh start to me, with twelve untouched and brand new months ahead of me waiting to be lived.


When I was younger, I used to be flippant about new birthday years. I didn't take stock of the year I had just finished living, nor did I stop to contemplate what magic awaited me ahead. As the years pass, birthdays are becoming both more meaningful and more challenging. They now arrive with some regrets for the intentions I set but did not live, sadness for the losses that I experienced during the year, and also immense gratitude for being alive to celebrate another birthday.


This year's birthday was one of the hardest. I have a few years in my life where I sleepwalked through the year, putting one foot in front of the other, praying for the strength to survive. The year I just finished is up there with those years. What makes it even sadder is that there were so many blessings in this challenging year that I did not, could not take the time to celebrate. Some days, just waking up was a win. I broke my own heart more often than I wanted, sometimes knowingly and sometimes only realizing it in hindsight. But it is now over. It is in my rearview mirror. Time to pull the new birthday year into a soft and loving embrace and tell her, "I'll do better by you this year, pinky promise."


I long to be more fully awake to my life this year because I don't want to spend another year asleep at the wheel. But I honestly do not have a clue what that even means. Or what it looks like when I am fully awake to my life. I cannot remember the last time I felt awake in my own life, but I can remember with clarity that most of the year, I kept wishing I was anywhere but here. There is this wistfulness inside me for all the places where I am not. My feet itch, wanting to keep moving, and my heart yearns for the unfamiliar smells and sounds of new places I am yet to be, wanting to add my voice and smell, making the new places a bit mine before I can move on. Is it because I just cannot seem to find "home" where I feel I belong just yet?


I read a book recently that left my heart even more unsettled, wanting, needing, lusting for something new, different, something I haven’t tasted or lived yet... the book was about the art of leaving and also the art of staying.


I know I have almost mastered the art of leaving, but I am far from mastering the art of staying. I wonder if this is the birthday year, my heart and soul will feel we belong, and we stay... present and awake in the life we are living.


13 views

Recent Posts

See All
bottom of page