Celebrating a “Backwards Birthday”

Today is August 14, 2013.  It’s my birthday and it’s a whole new world! First, I woke up totally convinced that it was my 63rd birthday. Something made me decide to do the math, just to be sure. I was born in 1951 and it’s 2013. I subtracted.  I still remember a little math, and my answer was 62. But, I was so convinced that I was 63, that in my early morning, pre-coffee fog, I decided that being 63 may not work in the first part of the year,  but once 2014 comes around it will be just fine!  So, yes, I was, indeed, 63. (I was also  up 2 hours earlier than usual! It’s the only excuse I can offer.)

I stepped out of the shower just as my husband arrived with my coffee and I told him my dilemma. He laughed at me, as he always does when I put my brain to work on practical problems before coffee and when it’s clear that my creative brain does not wish to cooperate. “No, dear, you’re sixty-two. You were born in ’51 and it’s 2013. Do the math.”

“I did!” My furrowed brow told him I really wasn’t convinced! For an hour I shook my head in disbelief, knowing I had to trust his conclusion over my own. However, as the coffee began to percolate through my system, I decided to go with it. In fact, I feel really good about being 62, in fact I’m considering permanently changing my birthdays to “Backwards Birthdays”.

This year I really do feel a year younger than I did last year. What if that continued? What if we didn’t have to dread our birthdays, but instead looked forward to being younger and younger? Would this make us feel better and better? At what point would we stop and say, “Hell, no! I don’t want to go back there?”

In all honesty, I would not want to be sixty-one again. It was a  hard year. Sixty was even worse. Fifty nine, was the worse of the three. Fifty eight wasn’t too bad, but fifty? I was so stressed out and overwhelmed with life that I wouldn’t trade sixty-two for fifty ever, ever, ever. I’ve learned so much in the past ten years, and it took the ten before that to get me to the point to make changes I needed to make.

This year I’m enjoying my “Backwards Birthday Celebration”. It has given me the gift of slowing time down just a bit, if nowhere else but in my mind. Isn’t that the only place where age really matters, anyway?

Thanks for being a part of my world this year. You’ve kept me going at times when I really wanted to quit.

May you be well.

May you be happy.

May you be free from suffering.

Today I’m not only celebrating being a year younger, but more importantly I’m celebrating the gift of a life with you in it!

©Dorothy Sander 2013 on her 62nd birthday.

P.S. Google wished me a Happy Birthday today, too. Maybe they should have told me how old I was! I’m pretty sure they know. I love technology. Before I even finished my coffee I had 3 birthday text messages and numerous Facebook well wishes. Solitude may be hard to come by in this technological world, but the love that is shared is at times truly palpable to me. DS