26 Years Around The Sun

I felt a strange sense of anxiety around my Birthday this year.

Something about the unstoppable movement away from my youthful days, the edging towards a bigger number. Every, single, year.

Usually, I’m not one to dwell too much on these thoughts either, but I know I join others in understanding a universally accepted truth — we often wish that time would take a break.

It frustrated me, too.

Because surely, this feeling shouldn’t exist unless I felt that life was escaping me, as if I wasn’t getting a fair chance at living.

But that’s not true, because time isn’t fair nor selective, it simply is.

So, I reframed my thinking.

I have a roof over my head, family and friends beside me, food and water continually in sight.

I have my eyes to see the beauty in this world and my hands and feet to experience it.

I have my mind to provide me with a living, the creative freedom to add to this world, and the five senses to receive some in return.

I had wealth before I ever opened a bank account and a richness before society had ever taught me its own definition.

To which I say thank you, to which I say Alhamdulillah (praise be to God) and to which I say, let’s continue living.

To which I say, let’s not ever see our time spent in vain, but rather as a gift to have been experienced.

God willing, here’s to another year.