"Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the sun." - The Beatles
My birthday was this week, and as a result, my Facebook wall was a host of many exclamation points, as well as a slew of X's and O's. My analytical side contemplated counting them, just so I could keep that large number in my head and choose to recall it if I needed to summon something positive.
When I was younger, the month of November would arrive, and there would be a giddiness throughout my being just because my birthday was somewhere in the middle of that month. Every year, I had a wish list of things I wanted. Usually expensive things my parents couldn't afford, but it was nice to dream for a moment about what might happen if money actually did grow on a tree.
I still get a simple pleasure when my birthday arrives, but it doesn't cause the same sensation it used to stir. Maybe because I've never walked into my apartment to people hiding behind the couch scaring me to death with loud echoes of HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Maybe it's just that I'm older, and as unashamed I might be about being 36 now, it's certainly not the milestone 16 was, or 21.
I was very introspective in the days that followed my birthday this year. In my life I have weeks where my life is full of activity, and then when I enter a rest period, I do a lot of thinking about my life. Evalutions and reassessments, validating where I am or pointing the compass to the next place. I constantly challenge myself to do better - which is great for the sake of achievement - but I have to remind myself at times to be happy and content with the person I am now.
So, to encourage happy thoughts of where I am in my life today, I went back to that Facebook wall and let my inner statistician take over. I counted every single exclamation point from my birthday messages. Four-hundred and eleven. And that number gives me a huge, uneraseable smile. I am loved. And that is enough for today.
I am focused on the good. Because I am good.
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