Another Year of Life Worth Celebrating

It’s my birthday and I’m thinking about death.

It’s my birthday, today, the day this lands in your inbox. I’ve turned 27—and yes, I do feel like I’m 27. I’m certainly not 26, anymore.

While I’ve never been one for a big celebration on my birthday, in the last couple of years I’ve appreciated more what a birthday symbolizes: another year of life. Another year of life is absolutely significant; another year is worth celebrating.

A big theme of my previous year has been the obviousness of the convergence of grief and love, and of loss and gratitude. Death has taken more of a role in my thoughts; in part, I’m sure, influenced by the loss of my grandmother last fall, and in part because as I grow older I become more aware of mortality.

As I grow older, I get to know both grief and love more intimately.

I will not pretend that mortality does not often evoke fear within me, whether the mortality in question is my own or another’s. The fact that we and all those we love will die is devastating, terrifying. And, the fact that we know we will die is perhaps what makes our lives so precious, our limited time with the people we love so important. That we will exit this world at some point makes our presence, here now, even more sacred.

Here, now, at the start of my year of being 27, I feel a renewed commitment to not take anything or anyone for granted. The time we have here on this earth is a gift; a gift we are deserving of, no doubt, but which is not guaranteed. I refuse to let the drama of daily life eclipse what I know to be true: that I am so very lucky to get to experience time, here.

How lucky we all are, to get to be here, to get to witness all of the brutal, beautiful happenings of life and of humanity. How lucky we are to get to participate, to contribute. How lucky we are to feel what it’s like to live.

Learning that grief comes with love, that loss comes with gratitude, that the highs come with the lows must be some kind of wisdom only age can bring: That we experience all of the above comes with time. How beautiful it is to have gotten enough time to bring us to right now, this moment.

I, for one, am grateful to have made it.

Cheers to another year; for each year of life is worth celebrating.

Maggie