And suddenly I am older! Yes, I am acknowledging my birthday today, albeit somewhat begrudgingly. You look forward to them eagerly when you’re younger, accept them indifferently in your mid-years, and begin to revile them in your later years. Don’t get me wrong – I am deeply appreciative to have been blessed to live this long and fervently hope to live much longer. I just don’t want the annual reminder of the descent into old age that a birthday brings; I get enough reminders, almost daily, through the year so I certainly don’t need an event to remind me I am getting older!! Yet here I am, openly acknowledging another trip around the sun, my 66th rotation.
What is funny is the fact that we “bookmark” it with the day, yet age accrues daily, hourly even. Every minute is an advancement of our age, yet we generally ignore that fact and only recognize it on our birthdays. I will say though, that as you age you tend to notice it more often as the aches and stiffness and assorted other losses of age accumulate. But we typically only pay open heed on that anniversary of our birth. I am happy to state that there are no new, appreciable losses to report this morning compared to yesterday.
We are a retired couple living alone. But today I awoke to a houseful of six with more expected later in the day, none of which pertains to my birthday in the least. I am lucky to have a loving and close family that I get to see often. I have three of my grandchildren as is the custom; they sleep over Friday night and stay all day Saturday. And my wife’s sister is down from Maine to visit a sick friend so she is staying with us for a few days. And my daughter and newest grandson will be coming over later today to visit and to make soap. (Don’t ask me, I have no idea – guessing it’s a woman thing?) So it shall be a busy day which happily has nothing to do with any obligations because of birthday. I am blessed!
The kids all have next week off from school, which means that my daughter has the week off as well, so we will not be babysitting the newest grandson next week. And we’ll be taking advantage of that by going away for a couple of days. For years our tradition has been to escape to the Cape for a weekend getaway sometime in mid-February. It was partially to celebrate Valentine’s Day, partially to celebrate my birthday, and partially to soak in a hot tub to ease the winter chill. I am hoping to sneak in a hike during the coming week as well, weather permitting.
Of course, my time is rarely my own and I am being quite truthful when I say that’s OK – I so value my family and I revel in being a part of their lives. I look forward to what this new round-trip of the sun brings my way! Stay well dear reader!!