“Happy Birthday, Chucks.”
By: Chukwuma Chinedu
Tags: Happy Birthday, Birthday

I have never been big on birthdays or celebrating them. It is for this same reason that I barely talk about it, care for gifts that come with days like this, or even bother if people around me remember that I have such a day to celebrate.

But this time around, I look forward to a birthday, why? I do not know, the idea of just being alive to witness another full-circle 365 days just sounds interesting, and for that reason, I have chosen to live and write about this moment.

I honestly don’t know what writing this is supposed to be about, my entire being just wants me to do it, it justs wants me to start my journey to documenting moments that time and life bestows upon me. Maybe in another 365 days or more, I will come back to this with excitement and glee, looking to share the tales of the days, weeks and months that come after this one, but for now, I am in the moment and I want to live it.

It’s 2:06 am on the 3rd June 2021.

After days of contemplating whether to write about my birthday or not, I am finally in front of my laptop recovering from Malaria/fever or whatever I was diagnosed off. (At this point, I’d also like to point out that health insurance is underrated and everyone should have one). Chief Stephen Osita Osadebe’s Jesu Bu Onye Ndu is playing from my laptop’s speaker, a can of almost empty Black Bullet (maybe that’s where the extra urge and strength to write is coming from lol) is atop of my work table and my fingers are ready to type the thoughts that fill my head.

Birthdays or the idea of celebrating one have never interested me for a lot of reasons, and one of them includes the fact that I didn’t grow up celebrating many of such days. The faintest memory of a birthday celebration I have is perhaps from a decade ago when I was in secondary school and the only thing I remember doing that day was taking pictures with a group of friends after school. I have never done fancy dinners, loud parties, getaways, none of what I see people go crazy about when they celebrate theirs and till now it amuses me the length people will go to for these “special days”.

However, for some reason I can’t seem to decipher, this year feels different. Perhaps the cakes and Pizza I have eaten at work on colleagues birthdays have left the lingering taste and desire to want to celebrate mine as well. I wish it was, but I can’t seem to explain this intricate feeling to want to yell to a million people that today’s my birthday. So I have decided to use this medium (Yeah, I’m sure you saw that too) to tell you and the many other people who will see this about my birthday.

I have felt so many things in the past year of my life, experienced lows that make you numb and wishing to just let everything go, and highs that even the rarest form of ecstasy can’t afford you. In all of these, I am more than thankful for the growth I have experienced, they say your new year should be better than the last, and I must say this has been my case as well. I look forward to the more, and better that will come with this new age.

I am thankful for a lot of people that have left me feeling thankful. I am thankful for a boss that never stops seeing how big you can grow. I have thankful for friends that keep you motivated, for colleagues that cheer you on, for my mom and most especially God.

So as I turn a year older today, I just want to retrospect to the last 365 days, to the fullness I experienced with life, to the lows that left me defeated and the opportunities that stay waiting to be conquered. Let’s kick more ass over the next course.

Till we meet in another 365 days. Happy Birthday, Chucks.