Birthday Musings

So it's my birthday - one of those milestone birthdays. The birthday when I give up my student health insurance and begin to participate in Medicare. (I think it is a delightful irony that I go straight from student to senior. And don't get me started on how every American at any age ought to be able to buy in to something like Medicare.)

So I'm musing about celebrating birthdays. 

I can remember some years past when I didn't want to celebrate. I didn't feel like my life was meaningful enough, significant enough, not worthy of celebration. I didn't want the reminder that I wasn't successful, wealthy and well known. Celebrating seemed undeserved if I felt I hadn't done "enough" with my life.

Turns out I was mistakenly trying to celebrate myself as a human doing instead of as a human being. 

On this birthday, I'm very much aware that I'm living in an odd window between post-op and pre-op. Some days I still get grumpy about my inconvenient life. Some days I spend way too much energy dealing with body functions and wishing this wasn't my life. 

But it is my life. And most days I am able to live with gratitude at the simple grace of living.

This year, instead of fretting about whether I have done enough with my life, I want to settle into the being. Content to be. To be alive. 

To be as healthy as I am. 

To be married to such an amazing partner. 

To be parent and grandparent of such amazing children. 

To be surrounded by such amazing friends. To be enfolded in the Goodness of a Grace-Full God. 

To be Here. Alive. Today.

More than enough. 

I love the Beatles' reminder: Let it be. Let it be. Let it be. Let it be. 

Whisper words of wisdom. Let it be.

I didn't do anything to deserve all the grace that has poured into my life today.

So today I choose not to do anything to mar the beauty of it.

I'll just let it be. 

On this birthday I will celebrate my human being.