Mount Birthday

For what seems like every year of the past eight or so years I have been afraid of my birthday. That day, that yearly day, is a monument. It’s this eye catching structure that hums and glows in a rhythm that’s sometimes aggressive. It sits there, within a month, waiting, knowing, teasing, but still. Every year I’d see it on the horizon and its power would begin to work on me again. My heart prodded so it’d beat doubletime.

Its most powerful attribute is that it is a reminder of time. The day approaches and it triggers the thought: ‘it’s been a year already’. I see it and am struck by the speed of time. I feel its relentlessness. I begin to cower at its destructiveness - how it’s eaten so many of my days in what seems like such a short period of genuinely lived time.

That is the issue: the result of the reflection. A birthday makes me think of how much I have done in the past year and divide it by the actual amount of time passed. I’m given a number that dissatisfies me and left in a state of regret and angst and disappointment. And that leads to thinking of the oncoming time, the upcoming time, what is left to live, what is left to do, what is left, how many years, years, oh years, oh years.

It’s very ridiculous. Life can’t be quantified. Fullness can’t be calculated with a simple division. Not any division. And yet, the feeling still ensnares me.

However, it didn’t this year. My recent birthday approached, it arrived, it made its way into the past, and throughout the sequence I didn’t feel any of that strenuous, overbearing terror. But why?

I was quite distracted over the period. Busier this year than other years. But I don't think that’s enough of a reason. Even with more filled time, the tone of the time is still present.

Another factor is that I think I’m more happy with my time than I have been for some years. I’m with an amazing lady and the future has a wonder to it. I think this has a strong weight to it, and has helped a lot with the terror, but I also think it can’t be the entire reason, because it seems I have an inherent fear of time, so how have I managed it?

Ultimately I think jumping that final hurdle has come from a gradual adaptation due to a change in outlook. I believe in days. I attempt to live in days over years. In 24 hour periods, years are irrelevant. Each day is the day after the next day, and one before the one after that. Days, days, days. Live by days. One by one by one. Days are more present, more immediate, than years. Days are closer and tighter. Days are lighter. Years boom. The size of years make birthdays hot to touch.

But days are also huge. They have great meaning! There is so much that you can do in a single day! Think of all those many minutes! The places you can walk to, the songs you can sing, the dances, the food, the water. The skies you can see, and the lands you can whisper, and the birds you can believe, and the waves you can move to. The winds that you can run, the leaves you can carry. The bugs you can glisten, the fences you can mention. So many moments. Days are huge. But there’s a potential for hundreds and hundreds of more days. If you mess one up, there’s another just a sleep away.

Turning a year older is a matter of choice. I am a day older than yesterday. That’s all I need. I can truly have a happy birthday now. There’s another day for me, another day to be.