Today is my cousin’s 30th birthday. 30 years on this globe that’s ever spinning around the sun at a mind-blowing pace.

It is interesting that we put so much emphasis on defining some days and events as more important than other. 29 is totally boring, why bother mentioning it, unless it is to mark your last steps in the 20’s. To some cultures 18 is a big deal, while the same connotations circle around 21 in other cultures. We like years and dating events so much we have filled whole encyclopedia’s with them. It is fascinating that we (or some of us) equate current events with former ones, as if by power of likeness in numbers they have something in common. Or is it just the nostalgia? Does one particular date allow for reminiscence, that the day or month before or after could not afford? Do we need to pin point when we remember, say the birth of a new nation, or the assassination of Lincoln (which would be today, for all of the history lovers out there, yet technically he died tomorrow, 145 years ago!).

I suppose we won’t ever stop reminiscing or being nostalgic, and I think maybe we think ourselves a bit absolved when we honor and ceremonialize events we didn’t or couldn’t do better at. My tiny wish for the people of the world (hoping not to sound too much like a Miss World candidate) is that they from time to time open their eyes to the current events and do, not close them and think.

And to my cousin; a very happy birthday, with lots of gifts and celebration and reminiscence and nostalgia awaits hopefully, with many more to come 🙂