Another year...

Today, my mother explained to me what it was like to experience my birth.

Strange; I have lived, up to this moment, approximately 26 years, 364 days and 23.5 hours and I have never before heard this story. I'd like to say that my birth was a momentous occasion on which stars aligned and planets converged upon one another, but, unfortunately, i have no such legendary occurrence to report.

My birth, rather, like my life, is recounted as a stubborn occasion. Due to my late arrival, it seems clear to me that instead of born, I was removed. Coming into this world as a benign and removable lump of humanity may seem discouraging, but it only furthers the relevance of my emotional status.

The day I was born, the first successful heart transplant took place, but my mother was probably grateful that I was no longer inhabiting her parasitically. I likely went home to a house that had expected me, but wasn't prepared to me, particularly considering a sibling who had lived twelve years sans little brother. Much to her chagrin, I'd imagine, there was someone with whom her family would be shared.

As I have grown into the man I am, I have realized a particularly important aspect of my life that I have previously ignored: birthdays are not celebratory, but rather a reflective occasion.

I have found that there are those people that are very capable at liking birthdays. Those people make me jealous. I find birthdays to be not a momentous day. but rather a day on which I reflect upon the year that has passed. I ask myself: am I happy with what I have done, where I am, WHO I am?

Perhaps my occupation has rendered me inherently reflective, but I refuse to think I am a lost cause. I wish I were the one who was uncannily optimistic, but I am too busy dwelling on what was that I cannot see what will be. It seems inherently unnecessary to predict the unpredictable future, but there's a huge part of me that feels discouraged by my own inadequacy to be more forward-looking.

I don't look at this as a flaw, but rather as something that makes me ME. I may not be looking towards 27, but I will think about 26. The past two years have been interesting, to say the least (and to obscure my true feelings), but I can't help but feel the impending THIRTY. I do not fear the milestone, but do ponder where I will be, but not nearly as much as look back at the version of myself that has thus far inhabited this planet.

For those of you who will say, "You're so young," to you I say, "I am young, but I've lived every year twice, wondering what I could have done to be a better me." At this rate, I'll be sixty before I'm thirty, and certainly prepared for retirement.

Battling anxiety and depression is like fighting a gun fight with a knife; you never get ahead. You are forced to better adapt your skills and resources for those battles I can fight. I can't be everything to everyone, but I can be me, 27, and ready for another year, until the next birthday...