”I tiptoed into 2023, like when I was little and did something I wasn’t allowed to do, then tiptoed, slowly, trying to sneak around so my mom wouldn’t catch me.

This time, I didn’t do anything in particular. I did, however, have a fire in the electrical panel in the house on Christmas night. It was an event that scared me and shortened my wings for a while. I was afraid that if I flapped them again as before, if I made noise, I would disturb the peace that had settled in after I had fixed everything in the house and I started to fall asleep again, leaving beside me, beside the bed, on the floor, carefully, the anxiety, the sense of urgency, of danger, the feeling that the salt droplet might be in fragile balance.

January is the month for which I have mixed feelings. I find it too long, cold (this year, though, I was pleasantly surprised), dark, oppressive, like the train ride I took one year from Warsaw to Poznan: leaden grey, irredeemably sad. The end of the month is always awaited, however, because for many years I have had this habit of leaving the country.

I like to be somewhere else for my birthday, to change every year. I figure that being in another country is like being born somewhere else, and the next year of my life will bring something new, pleasantly surprising. Not necessarily because I’m unhappy. But I am curious to see how it could be different. I’ve been like this for three or four days in the last 20 years for my birthday in several places, like Paris, Athens, Istanbul, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, but I’ve also been to Edinburgh, Dubai, Singapore, New York. It didn’t matter the distance, it mattered to be somewhere else.

You know what they say: you change place, you change luck. You can change the house altogether, just some things in the house, or the place where you are reborn every year. At least that’s how I choose to interpret it.

Unlike what I saw at home with my mother, who was obsessed with changes in the house, I need stability there. There are so many challenges outside the house, that other than flowers, some scented candle, books, I don’t want permutations. Home is my place of stability when I need it.

I chose to change the place where I am reborn because I imagine that every year on my birthday I have the chance, like those who make a movie, to do another take. One in which I play better. One where I can be on the stage of my own life and do my best that year. Then the next year, I get another chance at a take that starts in different territory.

I’ll admit, there have been years where it feels like I’ve been in a double feature of Groundhog Day. I started over, changed something small, too insignificant to cause any transformation overnight.

I also had years when I seemed to be a stagehand at the theatre, pulling back the curtain, doing the behind-the-scenes stuff. There were many reasons: my own self-doubts, awkwardness, various people around me with whom I got into some relationship that wasn’t right for me, major loves and equally spectacular breakups, misprioritizing, the disappearance of loved ones, and more.

But over time, after many takes, when the candles on the cake are as expensive as the cake, I’ve learned more, filtered, cleaned and tidied, added more, on a different, more fertile ground.

I’ve learned to celebrate my day and enjoy those who are there with me. I say I learned these because for the first 20 years I didn’t value my day at all. On the contrary, I seemed clumsy, fussy, out of place in the landscape.

To welcome a new year of life with all sails up, I think it’s good to be prepared. Or that’s how it works for me, at least. I go to another place, indulge myself somewhat, so that the new year starts off well. The intention to start the year with energy, joy is there. Then, sure enough, life happens, as a colleague of mine says.

But how I welcome life is largely up to me. You know how it is: something happens outside. We interpret it in our own way, each according to education, life experience, needs, fears, expectations. Depending on our interpretation, we have a reaction. This reaction is not objectively to the event, but to the interpretation we have given it. This is why there will be as many interpretations of an external event as there will be people attending it.

This year, I went to Lisbon. I had been there once before, a few years ago, when I had a course and saw nothing except the hotel where I stayed and worked. Lisbon is a welcoming, unpretentious, offering place, with its exoticism, surprising at times, crowded, but not as crowded as other European cities, seductive, a mix of history and modernity, vibrant, colourful, where I had the feeling that life can be easier to live.

In this new year of my life, I have set myself many goals, as usual. I would like, among other things, to let some events, some people pass me by more easily. It will remain who is good to be there. For the rest, everyone is on their own way. I remember reading somewhere that no one is worth crying for, and whoever is worth it won’t make you cry.

What are you doing for your birthday?”

via: Forbes.ro