Remember when you were the age when you stretched out your arm, extended your fingers high in the air to proudly announce that you were “this many years old?” It was a simple time, the halcyon crayon days of youth. Of make-believe, Captain Kangaroo and imagination, loving family meeting your needs, safe at home. You deciding what you wanted to be when you grew up at least at that instant because the infinite universe of possibility lays before you.
Well today I am 20,819 days old. That’s 400 weeks old. I would have to borrow several hands to enumerate the years in fingers. The hardest part would be finding the people attached to the hands that are not family. If there is one thing my dad had the gift for was for making acquaintances with anyone! Boiled down, it was making the effort to take a risk. It was his strength which I never sufficiently mastered except in the times when it mattered, meeting my wonderful wife, Jen. It is joyful to have her to celebrate my 11th birthday together.
Today I celebrate another year, another birthday, and another chance to make the best of life. Another year to realize the joy, love, and blessings of family. Growing in new ways in faith.
Remember a year is 525,600 minutes long. The song “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway Musical “RENT” though controversial in its time, had a wonderful message. It probes you to ask the question, how do you measure a year? Daylights, sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee, in inches and miles. Instead of objective and analytical measurements, it suggests love. Love, kindness, joy, laughter, blessings, health, faith, prayer, fortune, and perhaps a little luck. If I were able to sum it all up in Excel, I would wonder what the pie graph would look like. While mostly positive, there would be some negative values as well. Friends and family we have lost, opportunities not taken, stressors and moments of anxiety, uncertainty, disappointment and tears.
Time to make the best of the next 525,600 minutes.
