So here I am. Thirty-one trips around the sun and coming around for another go. Older but no wiser, as the drunk irishman says.
It’s been a mellow day. Cards and calls from people dear. A fairy left some flowers on my doorstep. A friend took me to lunch and the yarn store where we did our best to congratulate each other on how little yarn we actually purchased given what we could have walked out of there carrying. (If you knit, check out Babetta’s; if you don’t live around here, take a plane.) Luke and I went to the library. Shawn made me a picnic. The weather was accommodating and I did more knitting and goofing than working or cleaning. A pleasant day.
I remember being young enough to stand in front of the mirror on my birthday and be disappointed that I hadn’t gotten any taller. I think some part of me still expects some sort of quantifiable change. (Of course, empirical evidence of the aging process has cropped up by this stage in the game but we don’t need to dwell on that, do we? I sure as hell don’t.)
I like birthdays. I’ve yet to reach a stage where I feel inspired to dwell on the finite aspects of this trip we call life, so I’m generally all for a day when people go out of their way to give you a hug and best wishes. Soak that stuff up, you know? Proudly announcing your birthday to everyone that you trade conversation with over the course of the day sometimes produces impromptu singing and sometimes free desert. You never can tell.
Sure, none of us will live forever. But since we can’t remember the beginning and can’t predict the end, and since we have no true perception of the time that passes except that of our own fuzzy life spans, it may as well be forever because what to do have to compare it to? Daylights and sunsets, right? Midnights and cups of coffee. One more orbit around the sun. Hang on tight. Here we go again.