candling – v. intr. the habit of taking stock of your life on the occasion of your birthday, letting it serve as a kind of internal referendum on all your goals and qualities and relationships and accomplishments so far – which makes you want to dress a little nicer that day, as if you’re standing before a parole board that convenes once a year to adjudicate your release from childhood.

Such an interesting and contradictory definition, at least to me. I like the first part, taking stock, but it’s not as though I’m being judged by others. Of course, this is a dictionary of obscure sorrows.

Maybe even the “dress nicer” part makes sense to me, as that’s sorrow for me. I like to dress like a bum, or wear wild shirts, and just be comfortable. One of my bucket list items used to be to not wear ties anymore. However, as I age, and I see funerals, I accept it’s important to others I do so at times.

Enough sorry.

I used to do this, even in my 20s. I didn’t love attention or celebrations of me, especially on my birthday. They’ve always made me a little uncomfortable, which sounds funny coming from someone that does enjoy presenting and teaching people from a stage. However when I do that, I think it’s about others, and what I can do to help them.

Many birthdays I went off by myself, at least for part of a day. Biking or on a kayak/sailboard on the water earlier in life, hiking or skiing later, to take stock of where I was and what I wanted to do in life. What direction? I didn’t do a life quest, but I did try to think about the direction in which I wanted to move.

After getting married, I often used my birthday as a marker to decide if I was happy with my career and if I’d want to do something else. That’s helped me to decide when to continue on with a position and when to move.

I still do a bit of that, but my candling has become a more regular thing, often when I hear of someone having success in some way, or making a change, or sadly, when someone has passed. And I know often do so with my wife, discussing where I am and what life would be like if I changed something.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows