Today is my 31st birthday. For a long time, I've held on to a sort of mystical belief in birthdays, the idea that I would wake up on each one magically transformed, a newly-pure traveler ready to move through a fresh year of my life. Birthdays felt like a catalyst. I had a lingering superstition of their intrinsic power to make things happen, to propel me surefooted into a world I would come to know better and better.
This particular birthday feels a bit like turning a corner. Taken together, these 31 birthdays have worked to make me a little more comfortable with ambiguity, a little less afraid of uncertainty. I feel ready to gently retire the idea of annual transformative moments in favor of the goal of steady cumulative work towards the things I want. Maybe this means I'm ready to finally be a grown-up.
But before the long project resumes, I am going to sit on my couch with my dog and have a cup of tea and think a little bit. Because really, that's what birthdays are - a moment to enjoy the vista, a little hill in the year to stand on and take a moment to look behind, then look ahead before setting off again.
