Birthdays

My friends and I recently threw a surprise birthday party for someone. And it got me thinking...

Birthdays. Birth. Days. Day of our birth. Isn't there something remarkable and astonishing (Arkady's rubbing off of me) about birthdays? The fact that we celebrate this coming of age (literally) every year, that it means something much more than what we think it is.

Every time a birthday passes, your age changes. However, as your age increases, the days you have left on Earth decreases. Astounding, isn't? And this celebration--is it a celebration of your new age and new gained wisdom over the last year since your last birthday... or is it a mourning? This isn't just a middle age crisis scenario. It occurs to all ages.

This may be unique to me, but I always feel the presence of death in my life. Especially more pronounced now that I'm living alone. This may be the cause of all this impatience bubbling in my life, because I want to start as quickly as possible yet I can't right now. I always feel there isn't enough time. I want to learn everything because everything interests me, but I know in the back of my head, there will never be enough time to learn everything. And that saddens me.

Perhaps I should think in a more positive light.