Birthdays are celebrations of life when you are present to celebrate and can be actively involved in the celebration.  A “Celebration of Life” for you happens when you’re no longer around for the celebration – you’re dead.  (Jean)

Thankfully, I’m around for this year’s celebration of my birthday today.  I have been actively involved in expressing the way in which I want to spend this birthday.  At times, my life’s journey has felt like being on a  roller-coaster ride and other times like a cruise ship sailing smoothly along.

 Less than two months ago, I was on a cruise and the boat ride was calm and relaxing. You know how it is on a roller-coaster though.  Change happens every moment when you’re on the ride. I thought the roller-coaster would be a good analogy for the excitement and adrenalin rush, the ups and downs, and the inconsistencies that make up a lifetime.  It’s not always smooth like the cruise ship I was on.

Through all the myriad events of life, there have been opportunities for learning and growth.  Some growth came easily and some came through the school of hard knocks.  But like it or not, the years have done their work on me and I am changed.   I’ve learned to be grateful for small things where I once felt that striving for big things was important.   In fact, every second, minute, hour, of life is all gift and just to be here is a blessing.

“I am gift.” All that I am is something that’s given, and given freely. Being doesn’t cost anything. There’s no price tag, no strings attached. ~ Thomas Merton

At sixty-nine, I’m grateful to wake up in the morning, grateful for mostly blue skies, grateful for the nice apartment that I’m living in, grateful for eyes to see, ears to hear, grateful that I can walk and talk.  I feel grateful for the people in my life, for what I’m able to do each day, and I’m learning to be grateful for the things I was once able to do but find more difficult to do now.  In short, I’m grateful for everything.  It doesn’t take very much to please me – very unlike my earlier self.

The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. ~ Abraham Maslow

There’s been a lot of talk about mindfulness and living in the now touted in many bestsellers.  Who hasn’t heard or read “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle?  Well, the truth is that I’m learning to be mindful these days and to try to live in the present moment.  When I forget, I try to bring myself back to what I ought to be doing in the present moment.  It’s not easy but being reflective and present has its own reward – greater self-awareness.  It’s a necessity at this age.

To know yourself as the Being underneath the thinker, the stillness underneath the mental noise, the love and joy underneath the pain, is freedom, salvation, enlightenment. ~ Eckhart Tolle

Another area of change for me has been in coming to the realization that it’s not the material things that I have acquired or wished to acquire that brought me happiness.  With each new acquisition, I was temporarily happy.  It wasn’t too long before I was seeking some other “toy”  to fill the void within.  I notice now that as I become more generous with my worldly goods, my time, my talents, and my resources, there is more peace and contentment within.

We arrive on this planet empty handed,
We will all soon leave empty handed.
So then, how and in what spirit do we want to spend the time in between? (Nimo)

On the question of time, there is the realization at sixty-nine that this is a very limited resource.  Most people don’t like to hear any talk of death but it is an appointment we all have to keep at some time or the other.  I no longer want to  pursue wealth, property, education, status, and other acquisitions that I gave my time to in days gone by.  What I have now is more than enough.  The sum of my life can’t be about the things that I possess.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.” ~ Epictetus

Because we’re here for a limited time, we want to celebrate life.  I was at the most beautiful “Celebration of Life” party last Saturday for a cousin we lost to cancer.  He didn’t want a funeral but a coming-together to celebrate his life.  His wife and children organized a gathering of family and friends at which there was food (potluck), music, entertainment, photos and stories about his life shared amongst each other, sadness and joy blended together.  This celebration had none of the trimmings and trappings of religion.  It wasn’t necessary.  He had a strong faith and lived it out in his life.  What a wonderful way to be remembered.  “Life is what you celebrate. All of it. Even its end.” ~ Joanne Harris, Chocolat

“Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you.” – Shannon L. Alder

On this sixty-ninth birthday, it’s a time to reflect on how inexperienced I once was and just how much I’ve learned along the way.  This learning hasn’t come from books alone but from life experience.  I’m sure that as long as I am alive and in this world, there are many lessons coming my way.   My hope is that I will seek beauty, truth, compassion, and greater self-understanding on this journey.  Through this awareness, I hope to foster better relationships with those in the world around me and just as I’m blessed by their presence, may they be blessed by mine.  After all, we are just walking each other home.