Sixty years slip quickly away marked by moments great and small, noticed or forgotten. Living in the present, we reluctantly leave the past behind and eagerly plan for the future, but the future never seems quite as we imagined it.  60 years 21,900 days, 525,600 hours, 31,536,000 minutes and 1,892,160,000 seconds.  Time continuously moves on second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, year by year.  Realization touches you that you have lived most of your days in rounds of activities that may have been important at the time but now you do not even remember them. You are lucky if you remember the morning. The elapse of time has feathered your memories and even they may not be as they actually happened but kaleidoscopes of remembered sensations and colors and important or not it, they are all lost now. No going back and changing the past, nor making time for regrets or having a do over.  What is done is done and over now.  Friends and aquaintances dropped in and out of our lives- some remembered, some not, some current, some not– all relentlessly on the same journey- some choosing to leave early. Tiny bites of grief taken out of your soul. Birthdays are a pause in the march of time-  Birthdays ask you to take note- another year has come to a close and a new one is about to begin. This is a time for reflection: What have I accomplished this year? Am I who I want to be?  Have I buried myself under a facade? Am I being true to me or have I lost myself somewhere along the way?  I was shown a leaf to demonstrate life’s path. When we are on target with our life’s journey, we take a straight path from the root of the leaf to the tip. The veins along the leaf represent the side  trips which call us away from the path.  Am I on the path or ventured out ont the sidelines ? Where do I want to b be or go? Are there more things to do or people to meet? Tomorrow, opening my eyes on my birthday……………………

Gwendolyn Villebrun