Like so many people, my birthday will fall during this 2020 COVID-19 global pandemic. It’s weird! I love my birthday. I mean, I LOVE my birthday! I love to celebrate life and the passing of one year into another. I love acknowledging the challenges and successes of the previous year. I love looking back on journal entries to see what has changed. I love setting new goals. Most of all, I love any reason I can find to pull people together and laugh; birthdays are great for that, right?
This year will be a quiet celebration. This year I’ll exit one year and enter another in a new stillness that I’ve never had before. This year I’ll wear a mask and celebrate online. This year, I’ll be deeply grateful I can breathe. This year I’ll be deeply grateful for my job. This year I’ll be deeply grateful for life in general. And you know what…that’s all just fine with me.
We have no way to know what’s coming in life, all we can do is embrace each moment for what it is, celebrate ourselves and pray for tomorrow. So in the pandemic birthday, I celebrate the present, and hold hope for tomorrow. I’m completing my 51st trip around the sun with more love in my life than ever before. It’s deeply lovely and I am blessed. So to all of my pandemic birthday friends, I raise a toast to you and say “You’ve made it here…stop and breathe…then keep going.”
Shalom,
KA
Just a Kid from Akron 