another season passes by you

Here is a secret about me, something many of my friends do not know. I actually enjoy birthdays. I enjoy the passing of time, the ticking of a milestone, the celebrations, the family phone calls, the warm fuzzies, the whole production. This is strange to admit, because what I really loathe and avoid is being the center of attention.

Here is another secret about me. I have held it against friends that, since moving to San Francisco, my birthdays have been blah at best. At first, I thought it was just that I was getting older, and so, naturally, the hoopla was supposed to subside. However, it was never about the hoopla. That is not what I had enjoyed in past birthdays.

But, as one of the annoying facilitators at work said earlier this week, when you point at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you. Yeah, I don't get it either. Still, this year I am taking matters into my own hands. I am planning out my own birthday celebration, and, while that may strike some of you as pathetic, it is exactly as I want it to be. Of course, since I am darting across the country again starting tomorrow morning, it is likely I will not actually send out an invitation to my birthday until everyone has already made other plans. But this way, I only have myself to blame for that.

Why bring all of this up? Because today is a different kind of birthday. This is the day we put an end to the sophomore slump up in here, because this blog has survived for two years. That is quite something, considering I seem to cycle through some crisis of conscience every so often questioning whether I ought to be polluting the internets with all my little words. There are still days when I wonder why I started blogging, why I enjoy blogging, and why I continue blogging.

I can tell you this much. As much as I ramble, rant, and rave about the need to write, the need being personal and inward, as much as I try to remain self-contained, I doubt that I would have kept at this were it not for those of you who have left comments, dropped emails, connected with me in person. Sometimes, even your silence has had an impact, makes me reconsider my otherwise irrational fury. And often, just knowing that you have read something I have written has kept me honest, kept me to my word. Or shamed me, forced me to face up to wrongdoing.

Some people make their list of resolutions at New Year's. Some people make them in September, a habit from their school years that they cannot break. I have always made them around the time of my birthday. October is always an introspectful, but hopeful time for me. Very soon, I'll be making promises I know I'll never keep. But some, a select few, I will make good on, thanks to you and thanks to me.