how I'm not the same at all

How I'm the same person I was at seven, at seventeen, at / twenty-seven, at thirty-seven, and now, and how I'm not the / same at all, not copy-pasted year to year to year.

Maggie Smith "Self-Portrait as an Incomplete List of Mysteries" In A Suit or a Suitcase: Poems. 2026.

Ah, birthdays…gotta love ‘em. Or do we? I’ve never been a big fan really. When I was in my twenties and thirties, my birthday was a yearly reminder of all I had yet to accomplish, of the life I had yet to step into. Before I had my academic position, before I was married, before I had children—I was a person waiting for life to begin.

I didn’t meet my husband until I was 33. It seems so young now, but I felt rushed to catch up, to start the life I had been searching for. I had Charlie at thirty-five and Izzy at thirty-seven. Two healthy children just in time, I thought. I felt as if I’d won the lottery. Birthdays took on a different meaning after that. The years advanced, each one adding lines to my face, but I had all I wanted. My birthday was just a number.

I’m the same person, and I’m not the same at all.

Birthdays seem to arrive more quickly now. Like a separate clock exists for mid-life, one that moves at a rate faster than sixty minutes in an hour, twenty-four hours in a day. My children are taller than me, but just yesterday I carried them on my hip. Yesterday and a decade, somehow.

I remember seventeen and thirty-seven, those versions of me. Impossibly, my son is seventeen.

I am filled with gratitude for my birthday, for every tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I am grateful to be alive and healthy, grateful to watch my children grow into new versions of themselves. My birthday reminds me that time is finite and to make the most of every day. Plan the trip, gather with friends, submit one more query.

Every year is an opportunity to discover a new version of me. There is no need to copy-paste from the year before. This next unwritten version is the one I’m most excited about. Let’s see what awaits. Let’s see…

Thank you for reading Work in Progress!