today is my birthday, which isn't a "special" year (47 isn't an important number at all lol), and although I'm having lunch with my sons and later on dinner with them and my daughter and her partner, and even though I've had plenty of friends and family wishing me well on FB or thru messages, I'll be honest: I don't really feel like my getting older is anything to celebrate.
I didn't do anything special to survive another year (move to a safer city, change jobs, quit a destructive habit, etc...), so if you stop and think about it it's only sheer dumb luck that I'm still alive. Life and the universe is completely random and unfair, so the fact that the universe hasn't killed me yet doesn't really seem like a reason to celebrate. Congrats, I didn't arbitrarily get taken out...? Doesn't really have a ring as a saying to put on a cake now, does it?
Besides, I've been reading a lot about how mortals don't truly have free will (did you ask to be born in the body you inhabit? To the parents you have, in the city and country you were born in? Can you just up and move to a better place without consequences?) and it's really brought me down. None of us are truly free, we just have the illusion of free will. And, I'll be honest, since I was 7 I've been angry and frightened about my birthday every year since I'm furious that one day I will just not be here (and yes, I know I'm not unique in that regard, but it still upsets me LOL), so pretending to be excited I'm turning a year older some years is just too much for me to fake.
It's not that I don't appreciate people in my life being happy I'm still here, it's that it's sometimes difficult to put into words how I'm feeling without it coming off as rude or being an asshole. But yeah, that's where my headspace is at lately.
