My son hasn't quite turned one yet...I've never celebrated anyone's one-year birthday, and quite apart from the fact that it's my own son, I'm awed by the importance of this event. A human being has experienced the world for one year--no more, no less.
We mark so much of what happens in our lives in terms of years--the specific year that something happened, as well as a year as a unit of time in which to accomplish something. "That was when I was twenty-two, young and foolish and ready to conquer the world"--"I well remember the year I was fifteen, how gruesome and glorious it was"--"Now that I'm fifty I'm ready to sink into life like a giant armchair, instead of like a rigid Bauhaus fashion statement"--"This is the year that I'll finally lose fifteen pounds and cut my hair in a bob."
So to think that someone, anyone, has passed through life for one year, and is now about to embark on his second...I don't know how to express it properly, but something about it makes me stop and reflect on how precious all our years are, however old and barnacle-encrusted we've become.
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