“No matter what they wish for, no matter how far they go, people can never be anything but themselves.”
— Haruki Murakami, Birthday Girl
So another birthday has just passed and I am now twenty-three. 23! As it is, I feel detached from my new age. My heart tells me that I still belong in the early-early-twenties era (as opposed to the early-mid-twenties era I find myself in now), where youth is still an excuse to be flighty and unsure; to be a wide-eyed, imperfect, bona fide work-in-progress.
As the years slip by, so do the excuses. Expectations are mounting. As my existence advances, so should my maturity. I am supposed to know things, to understand life. To know what to do, how to act, what to say. To make decisions; the right decisions. The hard work of years past, and the promise of raw talent, should be taking shape. Success, and karma (if it exists), is cumulative, rather than a birthright.
Birthdays make me think about such things.
As the years slip by, so do the excuses. Expectations are mounting. As my existence advances, so should my maturity. I am supposed to know things, to understand life. To know what to do, how to act, what to say. To make decisions; the right decisions. The hard work of years past, and the promise of raw talent, should be taking shape. Success, and karma (if it exists), is cumulative, rather than a birthright.
Birthdays make me think about such things.
In an interview with The BBC, The Drums described their songwriting manifesto:
We only write about two feelings: one is the first day of summer when you and all of your friends are standing on the edge of a cliff watching the sun set and being overcome with all of your hopes and dreams at once.
The other is when you’re walking alone in the rain and realize you will be alone forever.
Birthdays have the potential to cultivate both: immense happiness and immense loneliness.
I am always a better person in March. There is something about reliving the day I was born that invites introspection. It's the being-the-centre-of-attention; the acknowledgement of time moving beneath me, a current I cannot a control; being faced with my mortality, the inevitability of the ageing process. And so, when these contemplations resurface each year, I make an effort to be more connected with the people I love, to be more thoughtful about the way I live my life.
