Today, I turn 48 years old. I am grateful to celebrate another year of life and feel incredibly blessed and loved for so many reasons. But I admit today feels more somber in light of world events. Years ago, I learned I shared a birthday with Anne Frank who was born on June 12, 1929. Her words have been circulating again, a brutal mirror to this present moment of national terror in which people are being disappeared from their homes, workplaces, immigration appointments, elementary school graduations, and churches. And as a Jewish girl who died from state-sponsored genocide in 1945 Germany, her life and death hold terrible commonalities with the children of Gaza today, 50,000 of whom have been killed or injured by Israel’s relentless attacks in the last twenty months.

Today is also the 9th memorial anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub massacre, when 49 people were gunned down in a place that once represented safety and community for LGBTQ+ folk in Florida and beyond during a month that celebrates pride and the fight for LGBTQ+ civil rights. That summer, the country was also on the cusp of electing a president who would, upon election, begin the erasure of protections and civil rights for transgender people across two terms and enact the threat of Project 2025 to the safety and well-being of LGBTQ+ people throughout the country. So this year, this day feels heavy with threat to many marginalized communities. 

I also remember that June 12 is known as Loving Day, a celebration of the 1967 Supreme Court decision, Loving v. Virginia, which ended anti-miscegenation laws against interracial couples. And today, in real time, nearly 2,000 people are traveling in the Sumud Convoy towards Gaza to continue efforts to break the Israeli government’s siege, a land effort following The Madleen’s quest by sea. These two events and the protests in Los Angeles, alongside many other cities, gives me hope, too, that the best of us as humans will prevail in time. 

I know birthdays don’t really have that much inherent meaning across time—there are countless events and lives connected to this day, any day. Anne Frank was born on June 12. But so was Ferdinand Schörner, a Nazi and convicted war criminal. So to me, it is more a question not about the day we are born but how we live all the days that are not our birthdays. 

This Saturday, President Trump will turn 79 years old on the same day the Army will celebrate its 250th year. The Army had originally conceived a rather modest festival for its own birthday but under Trump’s direction the event has become an unprecedented military parade that will now cost taxpayers $45 million, now appearing more like the birthday wish of a dictator. This theatrical display of U.S. military force will happen the very moment an actual military occupation of Los Angeles is happening due to a manufactured crisis by the same president and which will cost an estimate $135 million and untold damages to the constitutional separation of powers. At the same time, he is pushing a brutal budget I refuse to attach the word “beautiful” to that will decimate funding for vital programs and healthcare for millions of people, pay ICE higher bonuses to disappear people out of our communities, all the while adding massively to the deficit and enriching billionaires. 

I thought it might seem morose or dramatic to post a birthday reflection like this one. And perhaps it is. But I realized the rage and grief I feel along with so many others right now needs its own expression if I am also going to celebrate the joy and privilege of being alive. Because the day we come into this world we arrive into a vast story already in progress. Connecting to one day in time across points in history reminds me both of how briefly we are here in this life and yet how much it matters that we live it. If a tyrant wants to align his birthday with the forces of empire and dictatorship, I choose to do something different. Because every birthday is precious and deserves protection and celebration. So my birthday wish this year is for more healthy and happy birthdays for every child, every person, celebrating with the people they love, in homes where they are safe and protected to simply, blessedly be alive, to dance, to love, to work, to create family, to worship, to be.