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I celebrated my birthday in Italy this year.

Birthdays are an interesting thing. For some, they’re a celebration. For others, they speed bump over them with dismissive words like “It’s just another day,” and others ignore them altogether.

I’m curious—how do you feel about your birthday? Have you given pause to think of the miracles that came together to place you at exactly this place in the world, at this exact moment in time?

I have a hard time with the concept of “it’s just another day” or a day to be met with dread. I fill my day with celebration, people I love, activities, places, and things that make my heart happy. I also love the reflection that comes with my birthday. I ask myself, “What have I experienced and accomplished in the past year? What do I hope to create in the coming year?”

I’ve always loved my birthday—who doesn’t love gifts and birthday cake when we’re young?! Early in my professional life, I claimed my birthday as a celebration day thanks to a difficult employer. I vowed I would not be spending my birthday at work and that morphed into an annual tradition of taking the day off and filling it with special people and moments.

Claiming my birthday as my own has also brought an unexpected sense of empowerment. When was the last time you crafted a day that made your heart sing, just for yourself?

Here’s the hard truth behind this state of empowerment: the moment of my birth was not a moment anyone celebrated at the time in which it happened. Rather it was a moment of trauma. I’m adopted and my birth mother denied knowing she was pregnant. My adoption was a closed adoption in the late 1970s, so the initial details I had of my birth were initially limited to the non-identifying information I had pulled from my chart. I now know a little more thanks to some connections through ancestry.com.

My birth records noted that she arrived at the hospital with complaints of stomach pain and discovered she was not only pregnant but in active labor. Those same notes explain how she never looked at me and never held me. She never shared my birth with anyone including my birth father (until ancestry.com matched me to both of my birth parents) and from what I’ve gathered, my birth was purely a moment of trauma for her. She must have been so scared, so uncertain.

At times, it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that my very presence on this earth caused so much pain. Thanks to ancestry.com, I have had some email communication with my birth mother and connected with another family member who has helped fill in additional details, not all pleasant but certainly helpful. All these years later, it’s clear that the shame she felt at my birth is still present. I do hope she liberates herself from that feeling one day.

I am blessed with the most incredible parents who always gave us lovely birthday celebrations, but not being present on the day of my actual birth means it doesn’t hold the same type of significance for them. There are no stories of “when I was pregnant with you” or details of my birth like the stories I share with my children.

I have one younger brother who is also adopted from a different family. When I was young, in addition to our birthdays, we celebrated our “un-birthdays,” the days my parents brought us home to be part of their family. Those days hold more significance for my parents—the days their lives changed forever. They grew from being a couple wanting children to a family of three, then a family of four.

All of this history contributes to my reasoning for claiming my birthday and celebrating it so enthusiastically. There is air in my lungs, life in my body, and light in my heart that I know I’m here to share.

I believe every trip around the sun is a gift. We are lucky to be in Earth school, on this incredible planet with beauty shining down on us. When was the last time you paused to hear the birds sing, to see the flowers as they bud and bloom, to notice the miracle of the trees as they show us the beauty in their changes throughout each season, perhaps setting an example for us to follow?

This planet is so magnificent and every year offers us the ability to live more fully into our lives, to set goals, and to create magic. I have a friend who looks at each year and makes a list of things she plans to do, books she would like to read, and places she wants to go. She has been to every continent on the planet and her travel list continues every year. She intentionally creates the year ahead so it’s filled with things she can look forward to and she invites the people she loves into those moments. In years where the birthday feels more substantial, her lists are even more robust. She’s my inspiration for moving from thought to action, from “someday I would like to, or wouldn’t be fun to” to “this year I’m going here and I’m experiencing that.”

How do you feel about your birthday? Is that perspective empowering or could you benefit from a shift in mindset? What would you like to do in your next year around the sun or even in the months left in this year? What can you move from “wouldn’t it be nice to” to “I’m going to”?

Make a plan, set dates, book the reservation, and invite those you enjoy to come along for the experience. The best adventures are often shared.

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