There is a quiet, unsung magic about being in the middle. I have a birthday this week – not the flashy milestone kind, but a significant one just the same because by your middle years, you realise they all are.
I love birthdays. They have always been happy, positive events for me. Each year, I consciously feel glad to have been born, to be alive and to be here now. Many people do not get to live this long. I feel responsible for enjoying birthdays enough for them as well.
And rather than treating a birthday like an emotional assessment of who loves you enough to remember, or at least be prompted by social media to say so, I see them now as an annual software update on my life.
It might just be a date, but that is also a natural, structured temporal line. It is healthy to reflect and then install updates.
Life, by the time anyone reaches this decade, has inevitably served up a mix of triumphs and trials. I have learned that the difficult chapters do not define us but help hone our resilience. Stumbles are a reminder to stand a little firmer next time. Painful losses are a sign that what is gone mattered enough to hurt your heart.
Wrinkles and scars are not just signs of ageing but also lines that map a life richly and authentically lived. I increasingly find myself not looking back with longing for the past but overflowing with gratitude for every bit of the road that led to here.
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Like many adults, I see the real gift of a birthday is not cake or public well wishes, but a quiet, clear-eyed reckoning with time. It is a day to see the gifts in life and to recognise that the best of these aren’t wrapped and ribboned.
The middle years offer the invaluable gift of perspective. We know how to let go of the trivial, how to invest deeply in the relationships that nourish us and how to savour the ordinary moments that make up an extraordinary life.
The greatest gift has also been to have a husband walking (or running) beside me who challenges me, cheers for me and views life through a lens of possibilities rather than roadblocks.
There is so much left to discover in the coming year, so many mornings to wake up with purpose, and so much joy to be found in the simple act of being. So, here is to the laughter lines, the steady heart and the unwavering belief that life just gets richer.
Each birthday, my present pile grows: the past, the now and the ability to go forward with hope. Lucky, lucky me.
Dr Jane Stephens is a UniSC journalism lecturer, media commentator and writer.
