I turned 26 this week. It was easy.
Turning 25 was hard. It felt like a milestone. A significant number that must therefore signify...something? But that's the thing about birthdays. They just are...a record of your trips around the sun since you've been born. They are not helpful markers in trying to understand this life of yours.
In good years, years where you feel accomplished or content or just plain optimistic, birthdays remind you of how far you've come, how much you've done, how well you've lived. In bad years, when you've lost a love or gained 10 pounds, birthdays remind you of how much time has slipped out of your hands like sand...life getting away from you while you were busy doing something else. More than anything else, birthdays remind you of how you are trapped in your body, in this chronology...and even in this fucking orbit. But nevertheless. You've got to celebrate sticking around for however long you have, because that is an accomplishment in and of itself. And you shouldn't need Darwin to tell you that.