Rachel is the absolute bestest housemate ever and made me chicken tikka masala today! (I'm the bestest housemate ever for always emptying the dishwasher and taking out the trash, so overall it's a good thing we live together because that way there's no ego issues.)
It's my birthday today, and I am now 26. Birthdays have never struck me as particularly traumatic: if I have issues with getting older, they're never scheduled. Most noticeable to me on my birthday is the continuity of it all, how it's just an anniversary. I'm not a year older now. I am a day older than I was yesterday. I exist through life one day at a time whether I want to or not, so I choose to mark the passing of time on that scale.
Yes, Virginia, you've been dying since the day you were born. It happens to the best of us. And in a few short billion years the sun will burn out and anything left alive on Earth will die. Is that really the point?
Reading last year's birthday entry
, I declined to mention it was my birthday. It's entirely possible I forgot.I've done pretty well. I'm still alive, and there are endless millions younger than me who can't say as much (and millions beyond that who go to their jobs and get married and have families and live entire lifetimes without ever feeling alive). As you go up the list--no one is trying to kill me and I'm in good health as far as I know, I am fed and sheltered and loved and finally stably employed--my wishes for a better career and a less contorted psyche get shown up for how irrelevant they are (in the neverending proof that God has a sense of humor, as soon as I see both these things as irrelevant, they will resolve themselves appropriately).
The world does not weigh on me any more. I am more conscious than ever of how deep and large and wide my problems are, and I feel more free and unhindered than I can remember.