Birthdays are either met with celebration or dread. How we navigate our special day is often determined by how we feel about our life at that given moment. Generally speaking, a child’s birthday is celebrated with parties, presents, and a crowd of friends, while an adult’s birthday is spent quietly, sometimes alone, with very little fanfare.

I recently celebrated another lap around the sun and as I grow into the idea of this new number I find myself continually settling into an emotional comfort that I didn’t possess when I was younger. In order to fully explain my comfort, I want to bring to light the elephant in the room.

Western culture has conditioned us to consider youth as the only relevant and valuable time of our lives. We tell our youth to make something of themselves by 25 if they want any degree of success and happiness. We panic over wrinkles, sagging skin and dye our hair incessantly at the sight of a silver strand of hair. And if we aren’t panicking there is always that superficial friend that ensures you are.

Our society quietly tucks away the elderly in nursing homes so that others may take care of them. Once vibrant men and women who were given a long life by their Creator are treated as castaways by their predecessors. It’s as if we don’t even wish to see an aging body in a futile attempt to escape death.

The thing is, we find ourselves forever chasing youth instead of celebrating the wisdom gained through life’s experience. 

The emotional comfort I continue to gain with every passing year is a feeling I hope for us all,  that we can collectively lean into ourselves; the lines on our faces and the beauty of all the memories it holds. I want us to think less about our age as a number that approaches impending doom, and more about the tenderness and offerings that life calls to us. I want every day to be celebrated in a meaningful way.

May you think less of how you are perceived and more of how you perceive yourself. Strive to interpret every morning as a gift, with the knowing that at any moment you have the power to change the narrative.