Oh, Birthdays !

If you’ve lived on this earth for as long as I have, you would have already had your share of sad birthdays, days when you expected joy but felt invisible, lonely and heartbroken. Or maybe as a child you took on a family member’s disdain or cynicism around personal milestones, carrying unconscious sadness that isn’t even yours.

Whatever it is, birthdays can be an emotional minefield.

For many years, that was me and with good reason. My 35th birthday was a celebration of life and possibility and just as quickly, my 37th was of terrifying aloneness and heartbreak. I dreaded greeting the day in a life that would never be the same, unsure how to celebrate myself for the benefit of my precious little boys whose lives were forever changed. But I steeled myself, as warrior mothers do. I bravely went to the kitchen, determined to make something out of nothing. There I saw my place at the table so tenderly decorated by my sister and brother-in-law. here was a candle, flowers, a special cloth draped on the chair, the way we would have done it for our children on their special day. I knew they had waited until I was asleep to do this, certain I would be the first to rise. This act of kindness filled my heart with the recognition of love’s many forms and their eternal and steadfast presence in my life, no matter the circumstances. I have reached for this memory on birthdays touched by sorrow.

I have been doing intense heart work for a while and I just celebrated another orbit around the earth. This time, I felt so profoundly met, blessed and celebrated. I woke up with an immense sense of gratitude which only grew as greetings arrived, most of them unexpected, all of them so appreciated. There were a few missing from the usual roster, but this time I felt peace and knew it was right—a reflection of the natural ebb and flow of life.

Yet, I am a woman-being, so despite knowing that things were as they ought to be, I noticed a tinge of wistfulness at the total absence of flowers. I love plants and flowers and no milestone is complete without them. I felt my disappointment but decided to bask in the blessings instead. And oh, there were many! A few days later, a dear friend sent a heartfelt, handwritten (the best kind!) note with a most spectacular sunflower. My heart swelled yet again, in recognition of the constant gifts that arrive, if only we are present to receive them.

You reach an age where birthdays are poignant, simply because they are a collection of all the stories of your life. It is somehow always a looking back, even as we move forward in time. Yet if we do the work of welcoming complexity into our hearts, we will find ourselves again and again parked in the wild and beautiful field of gratitude.