Why I am: at Thirty-Two

A poem to myself for my birthday in no particular style...

I am thirty-two because my parents loved me into being.

I am thirty-two because I love being.

I am thirty-two because.

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And that's really all that matters, isn't it? That someone loved the idea of our potential to bring us into being. That we then loved our own potential to keep being. And that the universe is our potential - in fact, it's all of our collective potentials. What a wonderful feeling. By the way, that 'loved me into being' bit is taken from Fred Rogers' academy award acceptance speech and it has stuck with me ever since. 

When I originally sat down to write this post I thought I was going to tell you about this soul-quenching, emotional a-ha moment I had this morning and how it came about and what it means to me, etc. I wrote half a page of text but didn't feel anything. It's true that I had such a moment at 5:30 this morning but writing about it didn't evoke any kind of emotion at all other than boredom. I either haven't found the right words to capture the experience or it's not meant to be shared...yet. So, I deleted it and started over. 

I re-read what I had titled this post and immediately a poem came to mind and I got a little choked up. It felt right. So it didn't get deleted. 

It makes me wonder: how often do we do or say things that aren't true to our real selves? How often do we say things just to say things without really saying anything? Why do we do that? Why is it so easy to do that and why is it so difficult to be 100% authentic? This is why I suspect my story about my a-ha moment didn't come to fruition: I hadn't found the golden nugget of truth that is worthy of sharing yet. I'm not yet ready to share that much of myself and so I opt for saying nothing at all.