This is a day like all other days except it is marked on the calendar as September 10 which is my birthday. No special thing – but, I have already received cards and memos as well as presents. I think this is sentimental stuff and is really undeserved and a use of time that could be spent on making the world a better place instead of sentimental reflections on the passage of time – particularly with respect to me.
Time seems to be forever when you are young. I just remembered when Lily Lane was in hospice and I could not raise much response from her, that this was how we end living and enter another state altogether. I am not sure the latter but the former is certainly true. We all face death at the moment of birth and it comes to each of us after our allotment of years is fulfilled.
I never dreamed that I would be 81. Throughout the last quarter of the last century I felt that if I reached the year 2000 that it would be enough. For me, most things are NOT enough. I would like more but realize that the things which make up life are limited for there is not enough time in the scramble for things and experiences to feel, do and finish very many. I am grateful that I am now finishing the 7th year in the year 2000 and am making plans for a second Bar Mitzvah in 2009. For those whom I have told that my assigned date is August 9, 2008 I must tell you that upon reflection, that will be a year short in calculating the event 13 years from my 70th birthday. So, I will be planning for a celebration and the Bar Mitzvah itself complete with the marionette of myself at 13 a year later and I hope that by doing this I should live so long. It will give many people an opportunity to rethink their plans and include coming to this event in 2009 (most probably in August because it is summer and vacations can be planned around that). How is that for chutzpah on my part? But, I think age has its privileges as long life had its responsibilities.
The day after a birthday all of my life I have not felt any older. I am still the kid who first thought – hey, “I think – therefore, I am.” I have always had this notion that I was a unique thinker and, although proven wrong and short sighted most of the time, I do think I think and put my thoughts down in a provocative and useful manner. At least I proof-read most of the time and rush to print despite the niggling thought that I had a lot more to say on the subject. But, I limit myself to a page a day and we all have that to deal with and live with. And, notice please – we are alive to deal with thinking and I involve you in my thoughts daily. Happy Birthday to me.