i never understood how my grandparents could forget their age. i would ask and they would actually argue about the correct number of years. now, years later, i find that i too cannot easily remember my age; that i know i am old enough, but can't quite land on the correct number. depending on the day you ask, i may be older or younger, which also may be dependent on how i feel on that day.

today, i was told so long ago, is my birthday. On this date, i was born. All those years ago. I even have the London Times from the day i was born, and born, appropriately, into a fierce gale - the kind of tropical depression that never hits London. i believed this for many years, until very recently when i had to use my birth-certificate for some official business. the document actually said i was born two days later than i had been told. in short, the day i had been told was my birthday was wrong; officially anyway, i was born two days later - making me a bit younger, and if you believe in astrology and that sort of thing, then all of my charts and the like would be essentially wrong. this may account for the inaccuracy of my star-signs, as they are called. they seemed close enough, but not quite on the mark. perhaps my moon was not in mercury or whatever. perhaps it was really somewhere else and my whole life i have lived by this sort of predetermined what i thought i shoud be crap and it was all wrong. this gives me the unique opportunity of, somewhat later in life, changing my entire destiny by revisiting all of the qualities that i had been taught i should be based on a birth date that was inaccurate. now, i plan to take life anew and revise who i am, because i don't believe in pre-determination anyway - you make your own luck, just as you make your destiny.

the questions; must i determine who i want to be and then strive for that? or, is it wiser to just BE and then determine who you are based on your and other's experience of who you are and what you stand for. i suppose you don't really know until you are in the moment. all of this "i would never..." crap that people say is stupid. it's hard to say what one would do if you haven't already lived it. i would like to think there are things i would never do - that my moral compass is set in the right and good direction - but i am not vain enough to say with complete authority that i know a thing for certain. god knows i have done things that have surprised even me, including those who love me best. not necessariy bad things, just things that seemed "out of character" they had said. but if you do a thing, isn't that by definition within you character? isn't the very nature and accuracy of your having done a thing, something you would do? i can't say yet. i suppose i will wait and see what the future holds. i will live by my own, very strong, moral code and try to live a life that is right and good.