Today marks my 25th orbit of the star known on this planet as “The Sun.” 25 years ago, in this nearly exact relative location to the aforementioned star, I came screaming into the world, most likely unbidden by myself, with no return to the warm place I had been the previous nine months.
The last year has been a good one. I was asked today what the high and low points of my last orbit were. I can think of a number of high points; a house of good friends, many barbecues, a wonderful Thanksgiving, new forms of expression, new friends, the list goes on. I can likewise think of points that would be considered low; strained relationships, uncertain relationships, times of financial uncertainty, times where my humanity was shown to me in it’s most bare and raw form yet. But as I mentioned them, I was forced to add the condition that they weren’t really bad in the long run, but springboards for grander things than I had imagined. The low points sucked, don’t get me wrong, but the redemptive good that happened in their wake is worth the pain they incurred. The relationships that grew (one or two in particular that I am very thankful for), the wounds that were healed, all an amazing phoenix from the ashes of my brokeness.
It was also remarked to me on three separate occasions today, one at least slightly in jest the others during prayer, that there is thanks for my birth around me. I don’t often find myself thinking of my own birth at all, let alone being thankful for it. But the comment (joke?), “Thanks for being born” or the prayer of thanks for my birth strikes me deeply. It’s a warm, healing thing to hear.
I have led and completed what will mostly likely end up to be about a third of my life. It is done and remains with me in the form of memories, photographs, stories of those things I am not able to remember, issues that will need continued addressing for many years to come, and friends and loved ones of longevity for me. It will never be repeated or relived by myself or anyone else. It is set in stone harder than anything devised or discovered by mortal ken. I have, most likely, two-thirds to go on this road, maybe more, maybe less, until it ends in a fate not yet entirely defined. Two-thirds of a life equipped with the knowledge of the first third.
The second third was started the way I’d like the rest of my years to go. Surrounded by friends gathered together for any reason and being blessed by the gathering itself, not the reason. If my life can be about The Gathering for another forty years, that will be a life well lived.
My next orbit is my twenty-sixth. Half of a deck of cards, closer to midlife than to birth, two thirteens. An even number that seems somehow odd, not nice and square like 25, or totally off the wall like 27, or complete as a day like 24, or a perfect, four week interval like 28. Twenty-six stands out, it isn’t quite normal. I think this this orbit will surprise me. I think this next trip around The Sun sees things my imagination cannot fathom and I will look back at the end of this orbit, near again to this point in the solar system, and wonder how so much could happen in just this many days.
