Ten Rings

This month, my dog, Biscuit, turned ten years old.

And somehow, it made me realize how easily we take being alive for granted.

It's a strange thing, really - to exist at all. To wake up and be given one more year of this life. Somewhere in the busyness of ordinary days, that stops feeling like the miracle it truly is.

I don't think birthdays are really about age anymore. They make me think of the rings inside a tree.

If you were to cut open a tree that's lived for ten years, you'd find ten rings beneath its bark. Some wide, from seasons when sunlight was abundant and rain came easily. Some narrow, from years when it simply had to endure, growing slower, quieter, with only enough strength to keep going.

The tree keeps every single one.

Maybe that's what a birthday really is. Not a number. Another ring.

Proof that you were granted one more year and that you lived it.

Biscuit lives inside this birthday without knowing it's one. No counting the years, no wondering how many are left. She's simply living this one, completely present, the same way she has since day one.

Maybe there's something to learn from that.

Life is shorter than we allow ourselves to believe. We spend so much time measuring time that we forget what a gift time actually is.

Another year isn't about getting older. It's about being granted another ring. And I think that's worth celebrating.

Every birthday is another ring that says: I was here. I fully lived this year. 🌻

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✨ I'll ask you the same thing I asked myself today: are you counting the years, or living inside them?

✨ If this stirred something, The Dog Who Smells Time is another one about presence and what my dogs have quietly taught me - you might like it too.