Here we are at 36 trips around the sun. Birthdays are weird, you know? They remind us that this thing we're doing on this massive rock flying through space is finite and ultimately bounded by our body's ability to house our soul for an unknown period of time. Maybe I'll be here til I'm eighty five and gumming Werthers Originals, my beauty long since faded, my memory in rapid decline. As much as I'm not relishing the idea of my physical body going through the inevitable aging process (this face can’t stay the same forever) I think I can adapt to wrinkles and age spots. What bothers me most is the idea of losing all my memories. I have this terrible fear that what I know to be true and real isn't, or never was. I'm always looking to confirm the intangible things through shared meaning, alignment and connection.
In any case, I’ve got a long held sense of dread that when I get old I won't be able to recall all the gloriously beautiful and pure moments of my life. That I'll forget every person I ever loved. That they'll forget me too. That this life will be washed away. I think that's why I ruminate on things for longer than is probably healthy or necessary, and why I fear life transitions. And partly why I am so awful at letting people go.
This birthday year my goal is to be more present. I want to be fully immersed in my life and make less room for doubt. To let people go that want to go. To not worry about the choices other people make that I cannot change. I get so caught up in fixing things - in other people, in the world, and with myself, that I forget what's good. I miss the sweet spots. I don't see the beautiful, magical things that are already there for me to see. Gratitude for all things aside, I can get caught up in how things ought to be, not how they actually are.
I don't want to grow old without having a vast collection of moments that I can hold onto that feel warm to me. I want to stay tethered to life before I move forward towards a new incarnation. I want to remember the adventures I had with my siblings amid a chaotic childhood. I want to recall the peace I felt as a young girl on trips up the mountain with my dad. I want to remember the deep conversations about life and the spiritual realm I had with my mom. I want to remember the buzzing and magnetism of falling in love. I want to recall old lovers with fondness. I want to remember the way it feels to wake up to my children's giggles. Their arms carelessly outstretched on my body, enfolding me with unconditional warmth.
I recently closed off some significant chapters of my life that made me feel inadequate and stuck. Though these experiences were necessary to help me locate my growth areas, they also highlighted a profound sense of unworthiness that had been lying dormant in me for far too long. That took a year or so of healing. As painful as they were, I have to let myself be with this stuff without wishing it were different, to let it inform this person I’m constantly becoming, and pay attention. To allow the ebb and flow of it all. No longer swimming against the current like I so often do as a defiant non-conformist. I just want to know each and every moment of my life deeply, without restraint or sadness for what was or should have been. Whether or not I get that full 80ish years of life, at least I'll know with certainty that I was there.