The Existential Theory of a Day Every Year

 

Yearly update 2023:

It's been easier to remember the days of the past year. No more painful memories, just a linear (and sometimes, exponential), graph of joy with a few clumps of anxiety and sickness here and there. I saw more flowers in real life than I have seen in any of the past years. I think that's enough proof that it has been well. I also think that if not forget, I have been able to mold things in a way I can comprehend without falling apart. Maybe. Maybe I have had too much of everything already so the extra has no space to go to. I think I might be overflowing. I think someone left the tap on in the kitchen and locked the room. I think I got the smaller side of the loss.

All I know is, I get another year added to my list of achievements. So sweet 19th to me. I hope I can make this a year worth remembering, a revenge on all the past years, a token of goodness for the future ones, a reason of strength for the present. I hope this year is not the worst.

I remember so much of a day every year. All the chocolates and balloons and new dresses. I also remember the words and the actions. This day passes like any other, within a moment, after a blink. And suddenly I am back with my family at home thinking they can demand anything from me after giving me a cake and a dress for my birthday. For a day, everyone makes you feel special and then time happens and soon you are on your bed hoping and dreading you could feel special for a little more than a day.

You haven't grown out of your childhood. You can't be an adult no matter how hard you try. You are 19 today. You can't go back but you want to escape so you try to push further ahead than you are supposed to. You are pushed back with the same force. Does it make you wish you never had any birthdays to celebrate?

Life has one rule: not everyone has everything. So even when you feel you are the only person who has nothing, remember the versions of yourself you had to leave behind one day every year to become who you are this day this year. You are forever a cocoon of potentiality and your death is only when you are free. So celebrate, even if you feel alone, even if you are 19 but it feels like time is faster than you, even if it feels pointless.

You are 19. You will get younger but you will never be 19 again.