Why Do I Always Feel A Little Uncomfortable On My Birthday?

What is a Birthday?

A Birth-Day.
A day of birth.

A time to celebrate birth, itself.
Birth: the creation of life.
A new baby. A miracle. A joy.
The joy of life.

Yes. This is worth celebrating!

Celebrating.
How?
Who?
Me?

I did not bring myself into this world.
Not alone. Not one bit.
A very tiny piece of my birth was my own doing.

What did I do, on November 4, 1987?

Receive.

Receive.
Yes. This is the way I most contributed on my day of birth.
From the umbilical cord.
From the womb.
From the hands of my father and breast of my mother.

From the world- the air that I breathed in. The energies in the room. The love. The attention. The cuddles.

Receive.
The eager curiosity from my new sister. Looking at me. Wondering.
Who is this new baby? What does her presence mean in my life?

I am a by-product of years of recreation that reach back to great grandmothers and great grandfathers that I never knew in physical form.

I am the energies of the Sun and Moon, spinning in the cosmos and manifesting in my tears and laughter and pain.

I am the elements of the world: water and fire, Earth and wind, gaining momentum and dissipating throughout the hours of the day; dancing to find a balance that is often lost. And then found again. Constant rediscovery. Grounds for more celebration.

A never-ending dance.
A flow.
A rhythm.

A music.
I am this, too. I am a smile that is given to me by the hummingbirds that visit my window on early mornings. I am the serenity of the cows that look at me as they graze in the fields across from my shelter. I am the ecstasy of the silence beneath the ocean.

I am the voice of my Grandma, in her accent and fowl language. I am the calf muscles of my father and metabolism of my mother. I am the confidence of my older sister, the creativity of my next sister, and the humbleness of my baby sister. I am the longing to love people of my dog. I am the gratitude of the lady who has let me live in her apartment for 3 months. I am the broken pieces of heart from past lovers that have created more space to be filled with more love from more people and so I am also an expanding heart. I am the poverty of the children I lived with in El Salvador without access to clean water. I am the dedication and perseverance of their single mothers. I am the culprits in corporate America. I am the forgiveness of Mother Teresa. I am the commitment and fearlessness of doing better of Martin Luther King.

I am.

Everything.

And simultaneously, I am nothing, without you.
Without all of this.

It is "my" birthday.
It is the day of my birth.
It appears that way in our world. Yes. I agree.
And I am happy to celebrate.

Because life is definitely worth celebrating.

Every day, life is worth celebrating.
Every day, someone is born.

So everyday, we take the time to celebrate someone.
"Our" birth days.

And so in essence, we are celebrating all of us.
Together.
Everyday.

Let us remember that.

In all the ways we interact. And exchange. Give and receive. We have made each other who we are.
So let's celebrate, together.

Not me.
Us.

This will mean so much to me.
Another reminder,
of how we are all connected.

This is the truth about birth.

Remembering
How and who and what
Gives us life.

Doing our best not to take it for granted. Noticing the moments.
Fully living. Fully loving.
Celebrating.
Togetherness.