The Best Birthday Present I Didn't Ask For

For me, the week of my birthday has always been a time of contemplation. About life, my place in the world. The time serves as an annual check-in, a tallying up of wins and losses. This week I’m spending time thinking about what adventures I’ve left in me and deciding what I have left to say.

This year it feels very different. During the past few weeks people have asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I’ve struggled to come up with a single thing—my brain totally blanks out. The truth is my life feels full in so many ways and I’m grateful for that. When I think of what I really want it’s not more stuff. What I want are new experiences, unhurried time with friends and family, travel, and adventure.

Honestly, the past couple of years have not been easy ones. Social media, the pandemic, and AI have made connecting with readers even more difficult than it was before. I’ve not had much inspiration to write anything of significance for a while now. It’s been a long, dry spell. For the first time in over thirty years I’ve even contemplated hitting the pause button. I've been doing this for so long I don't know what it would even feel like not to open up the laptop every single day. Just when I was preparing to redirect my energies elsewhere things started to shift.

I opened my email last week to find a message from the editor of a little English magazine asking permission to publish one of my poems, The Butterfly. Serendipitously, the poem is all about feeling discontented and rebirth. We started a dialogue and then the deal morphed into publishing a poem and doing a book review of Poems From the Edge of the Apocalypse in the magazine's autumn edition. It has been a long time since I’ve been approached like this, too long. Sometimes you just need a little spark.

Inspired by the excitement of that opportunity, I sat down at the computer a few days ago and a short story poured out of me called, The Last Reasonable Man, that I'm excited about. As I’m editing the story, letting it rest, and editing again it’s giving me that wonderfully peculiar feeling I get when I know a piece of writing is going to hit the mark.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be inspired again. This couldn’t have happened at a more perfect time. That editor has no idea what she sparked and possibly what she saved. I guess sometimes when we feel the well of our life is drying up all we really need is a little inspiration and encouragement. It was the best birthday present I didn't ask for.

All for now. Thanks so much for reading.