The Last Day of My Year

June 2, 2025

Greetings from the renewal,

I celebrated New Year’s Eve this weekend. 

There was a rich variety to the celebration, including friends and new experiences and the promise of more.  This was paired with a thoughtful consideration of what had taken place in the previous twelve months.  As one might expect for such an auspicious milestone.

If you are flipping to the calendar to see if you overslept by six months, I’ll spare you.  I was tying the knot on the last day before my birthday, a tradition not widely celebrated, but I highly recommend it.  I’ll remind you next May 31.

I marked the last day of my year by doing some of what brings me joy, beginning with a twenty-mile run. Again, probably not a typical way of celebration, but I suggest some version of it.

I set off into the wide farmlands near where I live, narrow strips of road slicing between nascent crops of green things I could not name.  In the first miles there was an argument in my body, a resistance to the effort, muscles complaining of overwork, my lungs moaning for some other, less demanding past time.  Napping, for example.  I had to make promises for that eventuality.

In some ways, the long run is a kind of exfoliation.  It is a way of scrubbing off some cells that need replacing, of feeling the roughness of living that may cause discomfort, but afterward is exhilarating and satisfying.  Getting to the ‘afterward’ is sometimes what keeps us from even beginning.

It takes a little longer, nowadays, for me to get to the place where I’m not consciously telling my body to keep going, when finally things loosen up, the pains ease, the little spasms pass, and I can run instinctively.  This is the place where I can think while my legs take me to where I am going.

Even before I formed the first thoughts, I could feel my history, feel the last twelve months lined up like books I’ve read and loved.  I have a few regrets since my last birthday, but they have been more of omission than commission.  Every birthday reminds me of the preciousness of the hours.  I don’t want to waste time.

That’s a little misleading, because I am not going to avoid lollygagging and goofing off.  I won’t stop taking naps or sitting and doing nothing when there are important things waiting.  I will pause in the woods for no reason except the hope of noticing beauty. But I will not waste time in anger, or envy, or resentment, or frustration, or disappointment in the motives of other people. I will not waste time on vapid screens. Hours spent in those pastimes are empty and fruitless and leave a stain on me.

Somewhere around nine miles things clicked over for me, and I sensed something new.  I could feel the age I was in, and the age of years left behind, I sensed both the ache of this birthday and the strength of all the years before.  I was fifty years younger, running effortlessly, and I was twenty years younger running with a determination born of experience, and I was here, in the last day of this birthday year, feeling all of it in me, seasoning my movement.

The fields flowed by, shaped with hedges and trees to break the wind, held in place by frames of hardpack dirt or cement or worn macadam.  Some roads had painted lines on them, others were more modest, and only offered a place to run, with no adornment.  The smell of the morning surrounded me, fresh and damp, laced with the earthy aroma that speaks of growing things.  The clouds were the color of faded denim jeans, as I turned east to shave away at my last ten miles the sun broke through and doused the world in brilliant white gold.

I could feel my legs struggling, the reminders of all the miles in the last month.  I slowed down, not resigning, but complying, giving in to the wisdom that is nested in every muscle.  I thought about the days ahead of me, how things would look when I celebrated my next birthday.  I asked myself what I would change, and what I wanted more of. 

I know what feels satisfying, what brings joy, what efforts bring value to my life and perhaps to the people around me.  I know that it matters when I try new things, when I continue to seek variety to challenge my mind to notice, to be uncomfortable, to hopefully grow.  I want more of that.

I want to remain curious.  I want to remain hopeful.  I want to connect with other people. I want adventure, not simply for the excitement, but to slow time to its natural progression.  All of this takes energy, all of it will create its own aches and fatigue.  All of it is worth the effort.

Still miles from home I could feel the run had changed me, again.  I had traded something challenging for something better, and in the process been given space to think, to feel all of the gift of my body, and to feel what it means to be alive and growing.

I wrote this out for me, to remind myself to do the hard things to earn what waits on the other side.  There will still be disappointments, there will be setbacks and pain and sorrow.  All of that is part of the price, and part of the celebration.   

I also put these words here for you.  None of us has to run twenty miles to refresh our commitment to the next year, that is simply the space I choose.  Find yours; and there’s no need to wait for a birthday.  That’s happening every morning. 

Hope this finds you celebrating,

David

Copyright © 2025 David Smith