The Melancholy of Birthdays

It’s time to take stock of what is and enjoy.

March 1. My birthday. I’m a Pisces, flowy and emotional.

There is something about my birthday as an adult that makes me feel melancholy. Like a caged songbird. I look forward to my birthday as a beautiful marker of time, but I also start to feel a bit of a weight start to sit on my shoulders and I walk into a grey mist as the day gets closer.

There is no ill-association with my birthday at all. I had the best birthdays growing up. We celebrated, my parents always turned birthdays into “birthday week” and “birthday month” and it was cheerful. So filled with confetti moments of joy.

And honestly, my birthday is still like that. I feel all sunshiny and glimmer-filled in the lead up.

And yet.

Every year I feel a quiet melancholy.

Is it the passing of time? The loss of another year; the gain of so much more life lived?

Is it the realization that I’m not a kid anymore and that each year I notice something new about my body or myself that I didn’t know yet?

Is it the spinning dizziness of time moving so quick?

I often find myself sitting down throughout the day at random moments just wishing for a slow-down button. A pause.

To sit in the sunshine and bask in the glory of what I’ve created.

There is a card in tarot (the 9 of Cups) that represents “plenty” and taking a pause to notice a fulfillment of a gift that has been brought forth. To sit and to observe it.

And I keep pulling that card right now. Of course.

So. My birthday is that pause. I want to put everything on hold and just sit and reflect. And notice.

I do Yoga with Adriene’s Birthday Yoga video every year and she ends it by saying “even if you’re not having your dream birthday, tap into a little love and a little gratitude”.

That phrase always brings a little well of water to my eyes and a tightness to my chest that spills out into this hot swollen feeling that floods my body. Because it’s so poignant.

And because it really taps some light into that dark place that I can go sometimes where I feel like I’m not living to my full potential.

To that small place that says “oh there’s another year going by, have you done everything you wanted to?”

And it’s funny because I AM living that dream life now. In this present. And I do get hit in the day to day with jolts of happiness that I’m here, now. In it.

Even my daily horoscope on the Co-Star App says “37 is the year you get everything you want when you realize you have everything you’ve wanted”.

But there is a weight that comes with that. It makes me feel like I’ve achieved it all and now the task is just to bask in it.

But that is so much easier said than done; how does one reap the rewards and just sit in the glory? It feels too luxurious. And hard. I’m used to looking forward. How to just enjoy?

It’s a task the universe is giving me. I’ll rise up to meet it.

But that brings the melancholy that nothing stays the same and that things will change and that this is not forever. And I wouldn’t want it to be. But still, I’m stubborn, and I want what I want. And I feel what I feel.

And birthdays do that to you.

They put you at the middle of the universe and shine that bright light on you.

Begging you to listen.

So, year 37, I shall listen: I will live abundantly, enjoy the daily pleasures, and notice the beauty in

Right Now.

*Foot note here: my cat has a different notion of time than I do. If she gets stuck in a room she will curl up and sleep, no sense of urgency to get out. If I’ve closed the door when I write and she wants to leave, she will wait at the door staring at the handle for minutes upon end without a meow or impatience. She sits at my feet while she waits for me to read to both girls at night before she gets her meal. I’m learning from her how time isn’t linear, it just is. And instead of finding a million little tasks to give herself while she waits, she just relaxes, sinks into herself, and waits. Things happen when they do. And I’m trying to relax into that too.

She just is. And I just am.

Happy Birthday to me.

And yes, I will be eating confetti cupcakes and cake like I have every year. The best!