Birthday Pause

Another year has passed.
Others mark the day,
As a significant event.
What will be your choice?

Will your day be spent,
In reflection, celebration or denial,
While others wonder,
How to keep youth alive.

Cliches about fine wine,
And not getting older but better,
Seem inappropriate.
It's how YOU feel that counts.

It may seem fun,
To be nostalgic for more irresponsible times.
When the body was young enough,
To do stupid things.

Trade your experiences?
Trade children's smiles and cries,
For an ache free future,
And a guarantee of no wrinkles?

Yes...another year has passed,
And 10/20 is the punctuation mark.
Exclamation, question or period?
It's your choice.

But let it be known,
That 10/20 is nothing more than a comma.
Time to take a breath,
Before the exciting narrative continues.

Finish the paragraph,
And turn the page.
You will discover,
The heroine of a romance novel.

Discover that you are as young,
As you always were.
Let the novel that is the rest of your life continue,
From the pause that is your birthday.