formality

It’s a new year! My female owner ushered in the new year unceremoniously, by playing Bang! with a group of friends in a games café. The group of friends merely interrupted their game for a brief moment, to cheer for the new year.

Unceremonious.

That’s the way my female owner spent her birthday too. She wasn’t referring to the friendships that kept her company as being unceremonious. In fact, she was appreciative of those. Rather, my female owner was talking about the introspection and self-reflection she did for both events (birthday and new year).

Absolutely zero.

Her internal state at the moment is – another year has past, another year beckons. What’s new? Life is so cyclical. One year passes, one year begins. Spends the year struggling through various challenges and obstacles, only to what? End the year and start another year with the same story.

Years blur into one timeline. It is now difficult to differentiate one year from the next. Birthday cakes are getting crowded with candles. Candles, each representing a year of one’s life, seem to lose their individual significance in the pillars of wax. She is ready to admit that she is old, that for a while now, she feels as if she is going through the motion of life.

Many asked: “How did you celebrate your birthday?”. My female owner’s reply: “with some friends”. My female owner wonders, how do people actually celebrate their birthdays? What does “celebrate” mean?

For a short period on her birthday, my female owner was alone by choice (or fluke, for those who know the story). Her Second Onli Fren was upset when she found out, as she could not accept the thought of my female owner being alone at home on her birthday. However, my female owner wasn’t upset at all. She has reached a stage where she has conceptualised birthdays as a formality to acknowledge one’s successful aging over the past year.