42.

With four friends celebrating birthdays, it's almost inevitable that the passage of time occupies my thoughts today. Just a blink ago, life stretched out before me like a vast, unexplored landscape. How did I approach these final years so quickly? Whether five years remain, or ten, or twenty, if I'm lucky, it's a given that they'll pass in another blink of an eye.

Things that were important once aren't anymore. I'll tell you what matters: people. Connecting. Making my mark by my role in their lives. Indulging my passions. Creating beauty, even if it's ephemeral and for my eyes only. Living my truth. Peace.

Those who will remember me are also traversing the universe at the speed of light. All too soon, they too will be reduced to names without stories that crop up in genealogical searches.

But we matter. And the time to matter is now. That's enough, I think.