So by all conventional calendars and clocks, I have been alive now for 26 years. Well, if you are a pro-lifer it has actually been more like 26 years and nine months, as fertilization actually happened around that time. And then some cell split and organs formed and some 17 years later my hair line began to recede. Which brings me to today. The late twenties. I’ve missed the point where I can have my first story appear in the New Yorker as a precocious 25-year-old. I’m several years out of college, expected to be soon married and making babies of my own. I suppose that was what Tony was thinking as he ambushed me this morning, tying me to the bed and covering me in the wax of 26 burning candles. I doubt either of us became fertilized but we sure made a good attempt. However, I am sad to say we may have burnt some holes in my finest birthday suit.

Which reminds me of this speech I once heard from a famous transexual woman who said that every seven years our body fully replaces itself. As in, cells regenerate, old ones are replaced, and every cycle finds us rebuilt from the ground on up, so to speak. Now, I’ve never really bothered to investigate the facts of this statement, I’ve just allowed it to seep into my metaphorical repertoire.

The positive possibilities of this are obvious, you are always renewed, refreshed, and rejuvenated. The negatives are what stick with me tonight. Because the cells rebuild themselves exactly the same way. Your body may be refreshed, but it remains the same. The same scars on your forehead from your 5th grade attack of the chicken pox. Or the one on your belly from the appendix explosion your senior year. The damaged and darkening front tooth from when you drank too much as a 15 year-old and passed out at the foot of a police officer, yeah, that’s still there too.

We have a template, and from this we are built time and time again. Now it may be possible to effectively shape, enhance, and even improve this template, but it isn’t easy. And it is this that I consider as I celebrate another year of existence. I consider the fact of my being as expressed by the physical form that I am in. Some elements of this body I am happy to rebuild, but there are others that I question why I still allow them to remain.

Tony doesn’t face this dilemma, because his tuxedo is always wrinkle free and flattering. And he isn’t confined by the same genetics as I, so he shapes and shifts as he pleases. But I suppose he also has no history, no bodily memories, nor potential to grow.

Am I still at the point that I have potential to grow? I sure hope so. Otherwise it may prove to be a dismal year.