In twenty days I will suddenly and magically become 39 years old. Around this time every year one might expect to receive the requisite what do you want for your birthday communiqués from friends, loved ones and acquaintances which always tends to result in the same response from me, year after year. This year will be different.
This year for my birthday I don’t want to receive a present, I want to be present – fully present – in every moment of every day. I want to touch and feel and taste and smell, to nurture and love, incense and inspire and to paraphrase my beloved Thoreau, not when I come to die discover that I had not lived.
I have never been the type who could see something and want or expect someone else to provide it for me. There are things I would enjoy if I had them, certainly. I am just not able to see past my own able-bodied means for getting those things if they were really important. Even more important, I cannot allow myself to ask for things that I don’t need when there are people around me who need things they don’t have.
Out of curiosity this morning I took a look at my Amazon Wish List and enjoyed a nice laugh. The items contained in the list were mostly books and study materials of a spiritual nature along with a straight shaving razor set and a pressure canner. I laughed because this isn’t a wish list at all; It is a bookmark list of items that I want to be able to locate quickly when circumstances and finances make it possible and/or important that the purchase be made.
I don’t deserve presents on my birthday. My birthday presence is all that I need.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
great point and wonderful post <|;-)
I want a pressure canner too. My ex got custody of ours in the divorce.
I think the best birthday present is presence, both of self and those we love. XOXO