April is my birthday month. The only time I “celebrated” my birthday on my own was on my first year on earth. But I don’t remember it. I imagine what it must have been like from the stories my mother used to tell me about this event and I think I was a very different person then. More curious, adventurous, strong willed and stuck to my mother’s hip.
Then I grew up to learn that I have a twin-sister. There’s another me out there, born on the same month and day, with just 12months apart. My twin; according to me was the opposite of me – my better half. She is more considered, more quiet and she is much more enduring I am, more reliable and more liked by people.
She looks at me and knows something is wrong. She calls me and I can hear it in her voice. She admires my easy going, lock up and go life, and I admire the structured, stable routine life she has built with her husband and three children. She is the part of me that is mothering and loving; she compliments me and she’s my friend.
Then later in life two brothers followed behind me. They are also born in April. The first is very passionate and uncompromising in his beliefs, extremely creative and according to me a closet genius. The other is very diplomatic and highly organised and the most optimistic person I have ever met. They are like the male version of me and I can see parts of myself in them sometimes and it scares me.
More years passed then my youngest sister got married. Both her father in-law and husband were born in April… within days of each other and their birthdays fell neatly between ours. Now all our birthdays follow one another, form the first birthday being the eldest to the last birthday being the youngest. Both on my birthday month and among my siblings, I am second.
Throughout my years on this earth; my younger siblings including my brothers who I share a birthday month with have been a huge source of encouragement, support and mirrors to my life. My true friends. They have sung all my favourite songs back to me when I lost my way, they have accompanied me on journeys they didn’t understand, and listened to stories that didn’t make sense.
They danced with me and laugh with and at me, so much so that I literally wouldn’t be alive if it wasn’t for them. They are the wisest people I have known and they continue to be meticulous sherpards of my heart when it flounders. So when I read this week’s truism from Paulo Coelho’s blog:
“I’ve learned that maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you have had and what you’ve learned from them and less to do with how many birthday’s you’ve celebrated”
They were the first people I thought about. It is true, sometimes age is nothing but a number and my siblings are proof that.
Happy Birthday To All of US!!! Let’s continue to grow in all the ways that matter. You are my constellation.
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellation” – Anais Nin
Jedi Ramalapa 