Preface: this is my series of RAW and UNEDITED daily posts for NaNoWriMo. It’s going to be extremely imperfect, lauden with grammatical and spelling errors, but brimming with potential. I post it mostly for myself, but invite any daring souls to try and keep up with the winds that blow me to tomorrow :wind_face:.

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Day 85 (NaNoWriMo Part 5)

Chosen of the Sun

POP POP POP

Congrats, you made it around the sun one more time!!!

I come home after a long day of work. My body is running on fumes from waking up early and sleeping late thanks to my self-imposed homework regimes, and everyday I fratincailly recompartmentalize what NEEDS to be done today and what can wait tomorrow, which eventually gets pushed to the next day, then the next day, then I will get to it on the weekend, but oh wait! Little Roberto has a birthday party this week! What’s that? Little Esteban has his Baptism the very next day too? How quanint! And so the self-imposed responsiblies I cast onto myself drag on longer and longer in my mind. Eventually, they will be done, but damn it’s rough getting to do so little when you aspire to be so much.

Ruminating on the scape of the mental lands I call my mind, the self-derived stress is like a bottle rocket waiting to pop off. I can only remember to put out the wick of the candle string before it eventually pops. Such is my life until others remind me that my life doesn’t belong to myself. I am ever grateful that I even have people like this in my life, who care enough put my first on today’s pedestal, but my body aches and my mind demands that I get back to work. I push away these naggings sentiments for the time being and focus on the task in front of me: trying to enjoy my own birthday party.

I usually try my best to hide the existence of my date of birth. Just as I self-impose responbilities for me to carry, I set impose unreleaistic perfectionist standards, and being celebrated for being alive seems like an outright insult to my own existence. A you-tried sticker for doing nothing out of the ordinary. A wayward extranaebity when I could have had a way worse backstory like my house burning down on my birthday or always being overshadowed by another sibling for having a birthday too close to mine (9 months ago was around Valentine’s day, huh…). As for the most part, my obscutation tactics work. I’ve hidden my birthday on every social media site, and whenever someone asks me when my birthday is out of passing, I usually reply with (it’s coming up soon…) or (it just passed!! what a shame.). And for most, that’s an acceptable answer. A birthday is just another date to reply HB with on [funny-name-for-facebook-here]. Everyone has too many [funny-name-for-facebook-here] friends, all these friends have too many birthdays, and these birthdays come EVERY year. What a hassle.

But some prod farther. Empty dates create intrigue. Why ARE you hiding your birthday? When you start dodging the question, they ask further. And I panic, I don’t know how to handle these wildcards when the event comes up so infrequently. Should I break down and start conjuring crocodile tears? No, that’s pretty low-brow, you’re making someone a villian to self-fulfill your own obsessions to remain under the radar. So I just say it matter of factly: it’s X date, I quickly say, attempting to have the conversation pass quickly to completition. Okay, I’ll remember that. Look forward to that day!

What.

Dear God, what have I done.

I internally facepalm, but decide to press the matter no further. The damage has already been done, I guess all I can do is wait impassively for the day of reckoning.

Oh man, that day is today huh.

With special birthday food in tow, and a special gelato cake served up afterwards, and a flurry of birrthday pictures with the birtthday boy later (why aren’t you smiling, Keir? Damn, I didn’t realize my faitgue was showing up during photo ops too.), the moment of truth comes. Singing that trademarked birthday and lightning the magic fire sticks of fate, time sits still for just a brief moment.

“What do you wish for thiis year?”

I’m never really sure how to decide. I barely remember my wishes from the older iterations of me, so either those wishes were mediocre in scope or too grand in scale to be accomplished in one year of time magic.

Last year, in a world long forgotten and pre-pandemic, I remember wishing for someone else’s hopes and dreas. What was it that I wanted for them? I wonder if they got it.

The challeneging flames fizzle as the clock kept ticking. They were the grim reminder that indecisvness was the true slayer of time, so I blew.

Wow, are you even trying? Those candles look just as strong as when we lit them!

Fatally rivalristic, I blow harder. The first attempt was admittedly half-hearted and lackluster. This time I blew, blew with intent, blew with purpose. The winds that carried me to stand here today. The winds that cointue to carry my hope and dreams to tomorrow. This year, I blew for me and me alone. I was tired of always placing mysself second, hopeing that someoone someday would pick me first. Today, I pick me.

To have the prviliedge to even stand here today is a luxury we take for granted everyday. So many others across the glove and maybe even in worlds not so different from ourslves fight to even breathe one more breathe, and yet their life is robbed from them all the same. The reminder of our own mortality, that all lives lead to the same end, lingers darkly in the bacak of our minds, yet pushed a little bit closer as the pandemic reminds us that death is is not he next stop we are eager to take an express trip to. No, despite all the plague, despite all the stress, despite all the burdens of yesterday, uncertainities of tomorrow, we celeberate today.

I am here, and I am alive, and I still have you.

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Today’s word count: 984 words
Total word count until today: 10,315 words

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@mariasokolowska @michellebasey @sabweld @ParisaR @sydneydobersteinlarock @wildcat @dragon @homeroom11