Last year on my birthday, as I was reading through the lovely birthday wishes that friends had posted on my facebook wall, trying to decide whether or not to thank each one individually or if that would make it seem like *I* was paying too much attention to the attention. . . I became aware of a curious feeling within my body. It was as if each "Happy Birthday!" was pulling the string of a motor inside my stomach- much like you pull the string of a lawn mower to start it. As I read each loving wish, I felt almost a vibrating, a stirring of butterflies, a light beginning to spin. And then, like a lawnmower that hasn't had its string pulled quite hard enough, it would stop. Each time I read a new wish I would feel this way, and I wondered what that feeling was about?
The right to be happy that I was born.