Still Life

“The womb bears all sorts of people, thieves and priests.”
—Chenjerai Hove: Marita
Bones

Today’s my birthday. A day I typically dread because what one can presume to be the good intentions of others often ends up making me feel trapped and hunted. But I can’t lay the blame elsewhere. My day of birth is also always a time of self-assessment, kind of like how New Year’s Day is for a lot of people, sans the resolutions. Even if I choose to grade myself on a lenient pass/fail scale, it’s a look backward that tends to worry me. Other people are giddy to have a day they can call all their own. For me, it’s just pressure.

I am always surprised, therefore, to remember that I arrived three weeks early even though I was also two years late, but this story is about what my day of birth means to me. It means that I have a purpose, a reason to exist. For 38 years now, I have been struggling to remember what it is, which means that the quest to remember is my current purpose. Nice that it works out that way.

I guess I don’t have anything else to say about it except that I’m neither a thief nor a priest. Yet.