I have a ridiculous tradition that I write on my birthday every year. These days, I try to write every day, but when I started this tradition, writing was still an anomaly. I still fancied myself an artist, not a writer. I rarely wrote at all back then, and if I did, it was crap. I still have most of it, so I can very much attest to the fact that it is crap.

This year, I didn’t actually write on my birthday, since it was yesterday. I went to work where I was busier than a one-armed man in a juggling competition. I’m not quite sure why I was so busy since my deadline is still a week away, but my boss has decided he wants things finished early. He wasn’t aware that it was my birthday until I told him that I was leaving 45 minutes early because it was my birthday and “how about them apples?” I didn’t ask; I told. By the time I got home, I just didn’t feel like writing at all. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case most days, but sometimes, I force myself to do it anyway.

I have decided something new this year about birthdays that, I think, means I’m officially old: I don’t care about them at all. I used to use my birthday ramblings, some of which are actually posted on this site (last year and the year before), as a sort of state of the union address, i.e. where I am in life, how I feel about where I am in life, woe is me, pompous ponderings, I hate everything, etc. I didn’t feel like writing that yesterday at all. I still don’t. Writing on my birthday is a very vain and foolish thing to do, as if anyone, including me, even cares. It’s not like I’ve ever thought, “Gee, I’d really like to know how 19 year old me felt about things.” I don’t care and neither do you. No one cares what a stupid, young version of me thought about her birthday and life in general, least of all, me.

Usually, on my birthday, I get very sad thinking about all the time that has passed and how I’m officially older. I tend to be self-deprecating, blaming myself for not doing enough in the year that has passed to make my life that much better. This year, I know that life isn’t going to get any better. This is it. This is all I get and I’m lucky to have that. I have use of both arms, legs and eyes. I’m generally healthy. I have a brain and all of my fingers. I have some excellent friends. I have a job, even if it doesn’t pay me enough. I have the cutest puppy in the world and the dumbest cat, both of whom have endeared themselves to me to the point that I cannot imagine life without them. I have a laptop, a yard, coffee and sunshine on my toes as I write this. That’s a hell of a lot more than some people will ever have and it’s a lot more than I had six months ago.

I write. I write stories and opinions and lists and nonsensical things that make me (and maybe other people) laugh. I write as much as I can, even if it’s not every day. While I am continuing the narcissistic tradition of writing about my birthday, it is not be because it is my birthday, but because it is just another day. I never thought I’d get here. I never thought that writing on my birthday would seem silly because I write all the time. I never thought I’d look over to that column on the right and see a whole archive of words that I’ve written and have even shared with the world. That’s a footprint. It’s an “I was here” scribbled on the wall. That’s more than enough.