46th Lap Around the Sun
Today marks the beginning of my 46th lap around the yellow dwarf main sequence star we call 'The Sun'. I have somehow managed to wake up 16790 times in a row so far, and make it to the end of the day. Taking leap years into account I'm probably a couple of days short, but I can't be bothered to work it out that accurately.
Did you know that when the Gregorian calendar was drawn up they knew all about the procession of the earth (the slight wobble on it's axis), and wrote into the rules that every leap year divisible by 100 should NOT be a leap year? Yeah – that happened in the year 2000, but we had a leap year anyway because it would have cost a fortune to change all the computer software. Besides – the boffins that look after the time have been correcting by a second here and there for decades. This still doesn't account for Apple never quite getting a handle on the whole 'daylight savings' thing – the alarms on all their operating systems screw up each year like clockwork.
So. Anyway. Today was my birthday.
I've been a bit taken aback throughout the day by the messages pouring in from Facebook. While a part of me knows that Facebook hassles you into sending a word or two, another part of me feels bad that I've been out of the loop for so long. So many names and faces have appeared in my phone throughout the day that I once knew well, and that I've kept at arms length for perhaps too long.
You see, I used to be 'somebody'. Not a very big somebody, but perhaps a little bit more than a nobody. I used to take part in the whole 'social' thing on the internet, and share my life with countless others – many of whom became distant friends. The faces that appeared today reminded me of simpler times when so many of us would empty our heads into keyboards at Tumblr, Wordpress, Blogger, and LiveJournal, and share our victories, losses, adventures, hopes, and dreams. I'm left wondering if it's too late to reach out and build bridges – to re-discover old friendships.
It seems birthdays often cause us to reflect on the past, and wonder about the future. I'm not sure if either is a good thing, or a bad thing. Maybe it's best not to think too much, and just to try and 'be' whoever we are right now.