March 24, 1997

It’s my B-day. As I lay in bed this morning in the Bungalows “Maria Cristina” on Pie de la Cuesta Beach, MX I thought about how I’m four years away from being thirty. Then I thought about the negative ideas that statement implies…is thirty old? I am happier and more experienced and somehow less confused after each phase of my life. And what a beautiful life I lead-despite my small problems which of course aren’t so small to me but life-affirming in their own way. On my past birthdays I have been in California, Florida, Missouri, Arizona, Massachusetts, Bequia Island in the West Indies, a monastery in Nepal, and now I’m on a beach in Mexico. Important to realize my gratitude and happiness in my life at this moment. Lilac told me that a man from Kenya in her class doesn’t know his birthday or how old he is, and I wonder why we Americans emphasize age as a number so very much when it’s really all about experience, or lack of it, and learning. Watching these stooped-over older men selling baskets on the beach and the kind-eyed ladies who cook in the restaurant downstairs makes me think of my own dad and mom. I can’t help comparing these individual lives to my own family. I stand in awe of the opportunity and privilege I have. My parents are rare jewels. Downstairs at the open-air restaurant last night (during the full eclipse of the moon) a family of four people–mom and dad, late teens daughter and son, all drinking lots. First the daughter broke down crying to the father, then the son began sobbing into his arms on the table. The parents virtually turned away from the kids, obviously not addressing their needs. Why am I the one sitting at the next table, able to write about their sorrows in my journal? Did the eclipse draw it out of them? Where will that daughter and son be a year from now when I write my next birthday letter? Where will I be, who will I be?

Above is an excerpt from the first birthday letter I remember writing to myself, while swinging in a hammock on a sizzling Mexican beach. I don’t think I’ve missed out on this annual practice since, although a few letters have been lost to the sands of time and broken laptops.

When I wrote this letter I didn’t foresee that over the next few years my life would change drastically. I would move across the country and begin anew in a new city, start a fresh career, meet my future partner, lose my mother.

The practice of writing oneself a letter is a fascinating exercise, but it isn’t until years later that the effort pays off—the words become a gift to your future self and an opportunity to understand how, and how far, you have traveled.