The Anniversary of You!

Happy Birthday to Us!

Roots to Breath, Dona Anderson

I remember when growing we couldn’t wait for our birthdays.  It was a special day to have cake and ice cream and sometimes have a few friends over.  As I got older, and was in the midst of life’s busyness, I sometimes let my Day go by mostly unnoticed and uncelebrated.  Some years I let it be just another day, or I didn’t want to hear the new number.   Even if I didn’t do much to celebrate my own day, I was and still am always so thrilled and grateful to receive cards, and phone calls full of love and birthday wishes.

Our birthdays offer each of us a special time to stop and think about our self, our life, the past year, and it’s also a time that others get to acknowledge us as well. It is kind of a marker for us to look at the past, the present, and possibly at what is ahead. 

I still have cards on my desk from my last birthday, and I so enjoy how all the messages are full of so many wonderful and different things.  One card wants to ride the wind to bring me XX’s and OO’s, others talk about recognition, and hope for sweet celebrations.  They send me love and friendship, thanks and gratitude, and another card speaks of a birthday as being the anniversary of you, and how important that is to not ignore.   I am so honored to receive all these cards and know that each one was specially selected for me. 

Now it’s my turn to wish them sweet celebrations.  It's a new year for me to send out my kisses and hugs, love, hope, recognition, thanks, friendship, or maybe a joke for a laugh or two.   I like to go out and buy as many cards as I can find for the year at one time.  It is a special yearly outing I look forward to as it gives me time to think about how lucky I am to have all these wonderful people in my life.  I really enjoy this time to go to the store by myself, with no other shopping list, and then leave filled with love, happy thoughts, and memories.

Years ago when we visited an old cemetery in Eastern Canada, we noticed they wrote the person’s age in both years and months, 66 years, 7 months.  They acknowledged all the days of one’s life.  As I get older I’m discovering again the need for me to acknowledge and celebrate my own birthday, to celebrate each anniversary of me.  And, to do better at noticing all the other days as well, and not let the busyness of life or my lack of awareness rob me of them.

Each new day is our most precious present.  It’s our gift of time to enjoy and share all the wonderful things that can happen in the moments, minutes, and hours of our day.

Wishing all of you a happy today, and Happy Birthday on your special day!!