Happy birthday to me
I didn’t think I’d ever be
Like those who bemoan
Another year to have grown
I know it’s a blessing
But it’s kind of depressing
Older a year but still unwed
Facing loneliness ahead
I am grateful for continued life
But I want to be a wife
See, the older I become
The longer I could’ve been a mom
Though time continues to march by
I feel like I’m on standby
Ready and waiting but never chosen
My life feels kinda frozen
I’m scared to be another year older
Even though it’s just a number
The older you are the more
You must have to account for
In our society that means family
But that’s just not my reality
I’m still single with nothing to show for
So all these emotions come to fore
Well happy birthday anyway
It doesn’t happen everyday
Go celebrate and have fun
Live life how it should be done
I didn’t think I’d ever be
Like those who bemoan
Another year to have grown
I know it’s a blessing
But it’s kind of depressing
Older a year but still unwed
Facing loneliness ahead
I am grateful for continued life
But I want to be a wife
See, the older I become
The longer I could’ve been a mom
Though time continues to march by
I feel like I’m on standby
Ready and waiting but never chosen
My life feels kinda frozen
I’m scared to be another year older
Even though it’s just a number
The older you are the more
You must have to account for
In our society that means family
But that’s just not my reality
I’m still single with nothing to show for
So all these emotions come to fore
Well happy birthday anyway
It doesn’t happen everyday
Go celebrate and have fun
Live life how it should be done
It isn't the years in your life that count, but the life in your years. You've lived so many fulfilling years with so much to show for it. You're an amazing person, with a great job/career (and paid off student loans!), and you continue working on yourself every day to be the best person you can be. I am a fan of yours! Whoever you do marry (very soon) will be incredibly lucky! Ad meah v'esrim in continued health and happiness together with all those you care about. May this year be a year of bracha, hatzlacha, shalom, shalva, osher v'osher...
Awww thank you so much!!!! I am so touched! I absolutely love this poem, you just articulate the feelings so perfectly (as always ;))!!!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome :)
DeleteSo here's a thought - when did birthdays/getting older become something that we dread? Why is it shameful?
I can only speak for me but I started dreading my birthday the year that all my high school friends got married and I was left behind on the sidelines. And the age that I turned that year some may start considering me an "older single". Right now as I write this my next birthday is less than a month away and the thought of that day isn't "shameful", but thoughts of despair, hopelessness, and all around sadness. And sometimes incredulity that I'm a girl who is written about all the time in Jewish magazines of older singles, their plight, their sorrow, their agony and sometimes their happy endings. It's a reminder to me that the ONE thing I wanted to change this year hasn't happened. Not to mention my married friends who have no idea how to react to my birthday and trying to convince me that "it's not a big deal" and "so what? You're awesome and amazing!" and me wishing they could still relate to how I feel day in and day out. It's also a bitter reminder that this is really my life: I'm single, my best friends are all married, and I'm another year older still observing everyone else and their husbands and families from the sidelines. And although I have loving parents and siblings, a successful career and an awesome new bunch of friends who keep me sane (Shout out to LLC) which I am so grateful to Hashem for, my birthday looming nearer...I guess is just a painful reminder that I'm still irrevocably and frustratingly stuck.
DeleteI hear you. It hurts to feel left out and like you have no control over what you want the most.
DeleteThe "shameful" part I think comes from feeling like you're doing something wrong to be stuck in the same place for so long when everyone else has moved on long ago.
Are we supposed to celebrate your birthday or ignore it? ;)