A Short Little Post for my Birthday (2021)

Blog Post No. 446

It’s my birthday tomorrow and it’s one of the big milestone years. I haven’t really felt the same kind of excitement for birthdays since high school. Not to say that birthdays make me sad. I just see them as a marker of the years and my years are starting to add up. It’s all relative and as much as age is just a number, there are more battle scars each time the date rolls around. In my mind, I’m the same kid excited to get out of high school, sure that he’ll blossom in university, and bummed out that exams start on his birthday. That’s real, by the way. For all four years of high school, my first exam was on my birthday.

My parents have shared many pearls of wisdom with me over the years. Some of them sunk in and some, I’ve unfortunately, let slip out of my grip. One of the things my mother told me that really suck with me was that she (and all grownups) were the same people that they were when they graduated high school but with more experience (and more tired). She probably worded it more elegantly than that, but that’s the gist of what stuck with me. So many things in my life made sense when she told me that. All of a sudden, the idea that everyone had some kind of manual for life that I never received (or more likely, had misplaced) vanished. They were really just doing their best, like me.

I really miss my parents right now. I can’t wait for the pandemic to be over so I can go visit them (the few kilometres away that they are) and start making up for lost time. The sentiment is particularly strong since it’s my birthday and my family has always done their best to make birthdays special. (Even if it’s just dinner and cake).

I had hoped to be a little farther along in my writing life by the time I reached this birthday, but I have no one to blame but myself. Besides, if I look back on where I started and where I am now, I’ve come a pretty long way. (Just not quite to the goal line, yet). Hopefully I’ll have something to show for another birthday spent in quarantine. I’ll just do my best, the same way everyone else is.