Carpe diem

A thought from this fresh thirty-seven-year-old: birthdays are yours, but perhaps not the way you've been thinking.

Maybe your birthday is not a celebration of you. Not a day when others think of you more than usual. Not a day when you need to feel special, not a celebration of another year lived.

Maybe birthdays are reminders to savor the day. With all the rawness, good and bad.

My proposal is this: on your next birthday, forget about the people, the plans, the food, the cake, forget about you. Instead, be more mindful of how your day passes: the people around you, the situations you experience, the nice things, the not-so-nice things, the feelings you've had during this latest day of your life.

I had an okay, fairly above-average Sunday today. But it was a great birthday. Hope the next one makes me feel similar things.