Birthday Musings !!!!

I'm 26 years old.Yea right !! 26!!!  
I was painfully reminded of how old I have gotten,when a week before my birthday, it was announced in church that I would be celebrating my birthday in the upcoming week. So after church a couple of people from the youth were sitting together when one of them joked'Everyone is invited to Mani's 35th birthday'. To which I replied 'no it's the 31st'. And guess what? To my horror and dismay one of them (don't know about the others though) actually believed that I was 31 years. Dang man!! I had to spend quite some time after that in front of the mirror assessing my face from different angles.And all I could find were three lines streaked across my forehead(the after- effects of years of useless worries). Then there was this time ,a couple of years back when  one of the patients asked me how many kids I had. I literally laughed out loud. I mean granted I had an overgrown facial hair at that time and presently an invisibly receeding visible hairline but still guys we have to draw a line somewhere!!!
         I'l let you all onto a little secret. My date of birth is not the actual date. The thing is that, there was no official record of my birth. So for many years I had no exact date to celebrate. It was only when I was required to officially have a date of birth for my matriculation exams,that I was given a couple of dates to select from. I guess 8th October was easiest to remember. But that doesn't diminish it's importance as I eventually found out.
      And right from the beginning I had no special attachment to the tradition of celebrating birthday.But all that changed in college. Thanks to my friends ,my birthdays became a special event in my life. One which I could look forward to. It's mine to do what I want to do, regardless of what others have to say. So since then I give myself on this day first priority. But like they say 'excess of anything is bad' , which I found out the hard way when I was almost run over by two cars at two different places on my birthday just because I was giving myself priority or when I almost fell from the escalator being lost in my world of thoughts. But that's just me being me.                          

Anyways having celebrated my 26th birthday a couple of weeks back, made me introspect my life retrospectively. I realized my life has been one hell of a ride ,and not everyone gets to live it. It's been a life worth living,with amazing blessings from above. And I'm thankful for the good as well as the bad pages of my life,because that's what has shaped me into person I am today. But that does not mean, I'm all done with my life and I have reached where I'm supposed to reach. No!! definitely not. There's lot more to come. So life' I have a message for you', " Bring it on"!!!....