Life Lessons

One Year Closer to the End of My Life

Happy Birthday to me

Photo by Zoe Ra on Unsplash

Today is my birthday. I didn’t ask for it to be, it just is. Every year, on October 23rd, I have to celebrate the fact that I’m closer to the time of my death than I am the time of my birth.

A little gloomy for my birthday?

I’ve been working hard on forgetting all my regrets and the years wasted. I’ve been trying to think forward, because for most of my life, I’ve been sick, and that caused me to be a person who I didn’t want to be.

Sure, I’m different now, but I feel the clock ticking relentlessly. Can I change the person I am before it’s too late? Can I fix what’s broken? What kind of legacy am I leaving behind for my kids and their kids? Can I somehow make up for the shitshow that’s been my life so I can truly say I had a good life before I die?

Sure, I have a lot of years left. But it took all these years to mess it up, how many more years will it take to fix? Will I ever fix it? Will I ever be the guy I see in my minds-eye when I lay down for sleep at night?

So many questions, so few answers.

I’m not this depressing all the time, am I? If I always thought this way I would never make any progress. This kind of thinking is the Jason I was before (Jason 1.0). The one that stayed in bed 20 hours a day and only woke up to cut himself and smoke cigarettes.

I don’t cut and don’t smoke anymore, and I don’t think like this. But I become very introspective on my birthday because it reminds me that life has a time limit, and I’ve used up all my time-outs.

If I want to make something of my life, something I can be proud of on my death-bed, I have to run the rest of this race at top-speed.

The funny thing is that everything I am doing to better myself is more of a marathon. In Medium, you have to pay the long game, because very few of us experience overnight success. Improving how my mind deals with my mental illness doesn’t happen overnight. Raising happy and healthy kids is an everyday thing. You don’t do a little work upfront and leave them to their devices. You have to put in the work their whole lives.