Birthdays

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In our lives we meet our fare share of milestones.

From passing our drivers license test, graduating, the first job, starting a family, kids... Each of those are milestones in their own right ~ bringing you from one place to another. From a non-driver to being a driver. From being a student into your future. From having vacation jobs to having a ‘real job’. And on and on.

And with each milestone we are letting go of of the old ~ something we have had in our lives for some time ~ in order for something new to come into our lives. Sometimes we may know what that new thing is. Other times we may have expectations about whatever new and exciting is about to enter our lives ~ which may or may not come true.
Some milestones can be scary ~ both from the perspective of the actual event as from the expectation of what comes next...

The most common milestone in our lives ~ and one that is widely celebrated ~ are our birthdays!

Throughout our lives these particular milestones, our birthdays, have vastly different significance. As a child we couldn’t wait for the next milestone, the next birthday to arrive. With the celebration of that next birthday we would be bigger, and possibly allowed more things. Like going to bed a little later. Having sleepovers with family or friends. And maybe even a slightly bigger weekly allowance.
The we reach that age when our perspective on the world changes. And that means that the way we view others and ourselves gets to be something new ~ definitely something to explore...

Yet as the years roll by, our eagerness for these milestones seems to dwindle.

From the proud “But I am already nine years old!”, all too soon we become ‘twenty-somethings’, ‘thirty-somethings’, still the ‘right side of forty’ ~ all the way to “I am thirty-nine ~ again...”. Then suddenly we find ourselves ‘close to retirement’. Or just plain old and wise.

It seems that, as we say goodbye to our childhood, we start glossing over these birthday-milestones. And the funny thing is that as we do so, we also have a tendency to deny ourselves the practice of letting go of the old in order to invite something new into our lives.

Looking back, most of us probably have memories of years that they were happy when they were over. perhaps because something unpleasant happened or hardships were experienced.
Wouldn’t it be nice to take some time right before your birthday to take stock of the year that has passed ~ of the good and the ‘not so good’, and to consciously release the ‘not so good’; to let go of those experiences ~ such that in the new year of our lives there also will be that space in our lives to invite new and better things into?

Wouldn’t it be nice to celebrate our birthdays as the milestones that they are in our lives?
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