more candles…more light

“It takes a long time to grow young”

Pablo Picasso

I just celebrated another birthday.  Another year of my life has flown by.  I had my cake and my celebration was small but meaningful- and I loved hearing my friends sing a little song in my honour.  The longer I spend on this planet, the more a birthday is a reminder that time is ticking away every moment.  That’s what most people can identify with.  Just getting closer to the inevitable?  The looming countdown clock that hovers over us all?

Well…yes.  BUT–this year I got to thinking…..Why do we have to focus on a decline?  I don’t feel like I am declining….on the contrary- I feel more present and radiant than ever.  I have a healthier lifestyle; I have life experience that allows me wisdom in stressful situations; I am continuing to look at my life in a deeper, meaningful way.  Our youth obsessed culture has skewed aging to the point where we are supposed to hide the number of years we’ve been alive?  Why?  Every year we live is another affirmation that we get another year to explore ourselves-look deeper-even fix things that have gone awry.  Corny….but, it’s a gift.

Our original birth-day–the actual day we arrive, bursting onto the scene so to speak–is not the whole story either.  When we are born we have already gone through a long period of survival and growth–the most important of our existence.  For nine months- we stake our claim on the world and grow at an astonishing rate.  On our birth-day we should celebrate our own will to live.  Literally.  Honour the brand new soul that worked so hard to have this life.

This year I will try to honour the years that have come before.  That have led me to this point.  All the mistakes and the triumphs-all the loves and hates–all the laughter and disappointments that make me who I am today.  Claim it.  Embrace it.  Wink at it.  And love the wrinkle that lingers….