Day Six Thousand Three Hundred and Thirty Eight . . . With Each Sunrise.

 Today is my Birthday. I'm 55 years old.

I was born at 11:40 PM on Saturday, May 9th, 1970. It would have been Mother's Day if I had waited another twenty minutes. But patience has never been my thing. 

I remember a family story where my aunt brought pink flowers to the hospital because she was 100% certain I would be a girl. Surprise! 

Here's me on the day they brought me home. The story goes that as soon as the feather came off, I peed straight into the air and all over my aunt's fur throw. TMI, I know. Oh well. Now it's your story too. :)

I grew up to be a curious kid--a nice way of saying "big, pain in the ass," and got myself into low-level trouble regularly. If I had taken better care of all the original-pressing Beatles albums I bought with money my mom never noticed gone from her wallet, I'd have a small fortune. But I was young and antsy and impulsive and some might say a bit devious. I remember one time I took a fresh, 1978 ten-dollar bill down to the China Royal and sat at a four-person booth by myself and ordered a #6 (pork fried rice, chicken fingers, and chow mein). I sat there while the staff watched this wayward child smother the entire contents in duck sauce, feasting in my Space Invaders tee, cutoff shorts, and Pro Keds like some sort of child star. If only. 

But despite my penchant for childhood excess, I loved my family, and I loved my friends, because these connections that we make through our lives become more important as we get older. I was taught to appreciate these things by my mom, one of the most generous, kind, loving, and intelligent people I have ever met. She had family and friends all around the world and kept these connections strong with letter-writing and phone calls--both of which seem to be on the outs these days. I have a couple of storage tubs filled with notebooks filled with first drafts of letters to friends and family. She would carefully put her thoughts in order in pencil, make her corrections in pen, and then choose just the right stationery (sometimes yellow with flowers and rabbits, sometimes blue with elephants and rainbows) for the recipient and let the ink flow from her Bic roller. 

My mom had a saying she incorporated into her life: "With each sunrise, life begins anew."

In fact, she took one of her favorite sunrise-over-the-ocean photos (one of her favorite subjects) and wrote those words below it. She framed a few and sent one to me years ago. I still have it. 

The quote is attributed to Jack Kornfield, an insight meditation teacher, and was in his 1994 book "Buddha's Little Instruction Book." This all makes sense in my timeline of things. 

But Judy loved this sentiment above all the other Live, Love, Laugh-style Pier One Imports affirmation plaques. This wasn't a home accent. It was a creed she tried to live by. 

She felt that each new day offers one an opportunity to enact change, if that is one's desire. Each downward pull of the Venetian blind cord affords one the option to take the things we learned from all the days before and try to not repeat that which was problematic, and dig into the things that worked. 

Judy held these words close, not only with the aim that it would help her stay focused and forward-moving, but also with the hope that it would resonate with me--her "life's proudest accomplishment and greatest joy" (no pressure or anything). 

She hoped that I would take the opportunity--or at least be aware of its existence--to one day attempt to steer the ship I was on through the storm of substance abuse and voraciousness and into clearer weather and calmer waters. And she never lost faith in me, no matter how bad things got. My mom knew in her heart that someday, somehow, I would find a way to see the joy in simply living. It took almost a year from when she died until I got sober, but it did finally come to pass. And since that day almost two decades ago, I've been able to help others see that there are more options to get through each new day than the one we know and trust. With each sunrise, your life can begin anew. Or, of course, it can go on as it has been. But as sure as that second hand keeps plugging along, the opportunity, the chance for change will always come around again. Isn't that amazing? I think so. 

My wife brought me breakfast in bed today--a birthday tradition for both of us--and asked me if I was happy. Of course, the answer was yes, but I reminded her that more than happiness, my mom wished for me to find "contentment." This was a word I never fully understood, and it's a state that I still can only catch glimpses of. But at least I can have more than an inkling that it exists. And I'm no clinical psychologist, but I'm guessing that, as with many states of consciousness, it's something that ebbs and flows. So the mere fact that I have been able to sit in Contentment's chair and feel its fine Corinthian leather is a sign that I'm on the right track. 

When Jodi's mom died last December, the world lost a great woman. And as Jodi said last week, "we lost a lot of things when we lost Jane." The woman had many quirks, and, like many people her age, had an interesting approach to social media. Her Facebook Birthday posts were the stuff of legend. I say that because to this day, I still don't know anyone who posts on their own page a "Happy Birthday _____" and doesn't tag the person in some way or another. I mean, the idea is to post on that person's timeline, of course. That's somewhere in the third or fourth chapter of the "So You Want to Start a Facebook Page" book. 

She also called me "Sonny Boy," which is also a term of affection my mom used. So it always made me doubly happy to see or hear it. 

Exhibit A:

But Jane did things her own way. She was unique--one of a kind--a real whammer of a person. But she also stayed connected to her friends and family, and those people were all part of her Facebook circle. Even still, if you didn't see what she wrote when she wrote it, it might get lost in the shuffle. 

Life used to be a lot simpler, I guess. And the "shuffle" was somewhat more contained. Maybe we just have a wider perspective on life--we see more because that possibility is available, where it once was only a futuristic dream. I'm not sure, and I suppose it doesn't really matter, but here in 2025, we are all in a part of human existence that I can't imagine can compare to anything that came before it, both technologically and socially. 

Today, as I opened my eyes and the panic and dread of the uncertainty of life unceremoniously filled the spaces where they know they don't belong, I thought of my mom's favorite phrase. I reminded myself that only I hold the key to how the rest of my day--let alone my life--will unfold. I did this and waited for Jodi's alarm to go off. 

Not long after, I smiled as she brought the tray of birthday treats closer, taking it in with my eyes, making a wish in my head, and filling my lungs with just the right amount of air. 

We enjoyed this special morning meal in bed, that's almost always reserved for the table not far away--the one where we talk about the rest of the day. Jodi went to work, I cleaned the house, and talked to one of my oldest and dearest friends. He sang me "Sto lat," the Polish version of "Happy Birthday." 

Soon I'll get on my bike and head off to work for a while, where I'll teach a few six-year-olds what I can about this crazy language I am lucky enough to have grown up speaking. Little do they know I'm learning what I can from hearing what they say in a language I'm struggling with. 

I wasn't planning on writing today. Hell, I haven't posted anything in a year and a half. 

But I had an option, as I do every day, to share with whoever so chooses to read. 

So, from the bottom of my 55-year-old heart, thank you for waking up today, thank you for being part of this life, and, as always, thank you for reading. 

And on we go . . . 

~FAJ