My birthday is soon, but since I am a leap year baby, this year I don’t really have a birthday. I never really minded it. I always liked that I had a special birthday that was a little different than everyone else I knew. I have never really known anyone else like me.
I want to believe that there are no coincidences and that maybe the circumstances that I find myself in life are there to teach me lessons or guide me along my path. This birthday I have noticed something interesting. When I was young, I was being hurt so much that I really didn’t want to live so I just wanted to get life over with already, but now that I am away from the abuse, I understand that even when life is bad, it is still a blessing and a gift. I don’t want it to end. I want it to last as long as possible or at least as long as God wills it to be so. I want to experience this gift and not take it for granted. I want to be able to understand how we are all connected and why there’s no reason to be afraid, even though I suffer from anxiety and OCD.
So today as I contemplate these things I realize how ironic it is that when young, I took for granted how short life really is and now as I reach the middle of my life, I understand how precious life really is. Then, I started to wonder if maybe that’s why I was born on Leap Day.
As I live my life, I see ghosts of memories past. Time of when I was younger, I start to see that maybe it all exist and it all connects. My life is something that God can see in a total. He can see me at all the ages of my life. That’s why being a Leap Year Baby, I can be a birthday age and a year age at the same time and it really doesn’t bother me. I could be forty years old and also ten years old because I had only had ten birthdays. If I could live with that paradox, then I could live with the idea that God sees me when I am every age, not just one moment of my life, but all moments of my life. And why can’t I? I don’t mean that I should see myself existing at all times in my life, but I should be able to accept that who I was, who I am, and who I will be in the future is a person that I love and accept and there’s nothing wrong with me. I don’t need to be afraid that I am going to make some huge life changing mistake that is going to ruin my life. I don’t need to wonder if I am just destined to fail forever. It doesn’t work that way.
The way that it does work is to just fall backwards into God’s arms and know that He is God. He has the plan and no matter how good or bad it gets, He’s going to be at my side guiding me every step of the way. I can feel the past and know it’s true, so I know it will continue into the future. I don’t want my life to end too soon, but no matter what happens He’ll guide me. I can almost feel into the future and know it is true.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
