It's my birthday...

It's my birthday.

I used to love birthdays. When I was a kid, I loved everything about them. I would look forward to May 7th with joyful anticipation, knowing my mom would make it a very special day for me, no matter what - and as a result, I would feel special as well. I wouldn't have been able to put it into words back then, it was just a feeling of basic joy - of being loved - an overall atmosphere of happiness and excitement surrounding the day. I would wake up to the sweet scent of lilac filling the room - a big bunch of pale blue lilac, every single year. There would be cream cake and candles that I was expected to blow out and make a wish. There would be a birthday present waiting to be unwrapped, of course. If it was a weekday, I'd go to school and the teacher and my class would sing me a song and give me a little present and we'd all enjoy being allowed to eat sweets in class - a rare treat back then. In the afternoon, my friends and numerous cousins - sometimes my entire crazy big family - would come over to our place, beautifully decorated by my mom while I was in school, and we'd have a big birthday party. It would be a slightly chaotic, very loud, yet immensely happy get-together, enjoying some of life's simple pleasures: playing, being goofy, eating tons of cake, laughing away, singing and dancing... childhood bliss.

Somewhere along the line that initial innocence and authenticity was lost. The whole birthday thing - the good wishes, the celebrations, the gifts - often felt fake or forced as I grew from a kid into a teenager, from a teenager into an adult. More often than not, no one would remember to give me lilac. Or cake. Or candles. Often there was no one around who would care enough to turn it into a special day for me, somewhere beyond the more material aspects, and myself I totally lacked the awareness - the gratitude or appreciation of my own "being" - to want to celebrate my birthday in any way. In fact, life often felt like nothing but pain and disappointment in those early adult years. Cynicism and frustration had partly replaced the joy and happiness that I used to feel thinking of my own birthday. Why would I look forward to the anniversary of an event that - back then - seemed like a giant mistake? I think my 30th may have been the last birthday I reluctantly agreed to celebrate - and that had nothing to do with age or wanting to ignore my getting older, I have always been fine with that - but as life had ceased to feel special, to excite me in any positive way, I simply couldn't care less. For more than a decade I would avoid being around and available at my birthday. I'd take time off work and disappear, disconnecting my phone, pretending I didn't exist.

Over the years, my perception of life in general changed quite a bit and so did my awareness of my own life. My appreciation of it deepened and I found to a new acceptance and love within myself. And while I made my peace with the past, letting go of old pain, finding back to a certain joy and inner balance, my birthdays still didn't matter to me. I'd still prefer to be by myself, in silent solitude or maybe with a friend, simply enjoying the day, regardless of it being my birthday.

Then last year, as the result of a slightly disappointing experience, I came to a rather amazing discovery... my birthday had begun to matter to me again. Ha!! I found that after all these years I was suddenly and unexpectedly looking forward to it again. It felt almost weird - a feeling of quiet yet intense inner joy. A slight excitement and enthusiasm even. After a decade of indifference and rejection, I clearly perceived my birthday as being a "special day" again. And this time it had nothing to do with anybody outside making it special for me - which no doubt is a most welcome and wonderful extra - but everything to do with my own, deeply felt awareness of it being something god-given, something special in itself. I know it doesn't really take a big party or beautifully wrapped present to turn it into an "event". The simple yet extraordinary fact that I've been given a life - that it's the one thing that separates me from death really - is the real gift these days. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to appreciate and celebrate that precious fact, to want to celebrate - alone or with others, loudly or quietly - that day I was born, brought into this sad, crazy, radiantly beautiful world, blessed with a heart, body, soul and consciousness... that's all it takes to make it special and fill me with gratitude really.

So yes, it's my birthday. And I love it. Very much so.