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Birthdays are about the date you were born. They are about time, how long you have lived but that means they're also about location.

The earth travels around the sun. Your birthday is the point on the orbit where the earth was when you were born. It is the start/finish line on the racetrack, the start/finish line for each of your years. Turning ten years old means you have ridden on the earth around the sun ten times, and are starting your 11th lap.

Now, we people have developed many calendars across the centuries, and we have labeled each and every day in the year. For example, here in the U.S., we call today 'January 24'. Ideally, the next 'January 24' falls one year from today, and the earth returns to this very same spot in its orbit around the sun. That is what a 'year' means. The earth has completed one lap around the sun.

Years ago, I wrote a blog post about the way Montessori pre-schools celebrate birthdays and how three-year olds come to grasp the concept of 'year'. The teacher holds a lighted candle and pretends to be the sun. The honored child holds a globe of the earth and walks around the candle, one time for every year, for every lap they've lived on this planet.

How many times have you traveled around the sun?