by Emily Martin.
Leap Day. The concept of it has always nagged at me, somewhere pushed way away in the back of my mind. It’s just a day, just another day. But it doesn’t seem right. Granted, it makes sense as far as mathematical and solar stuff goes, but still, it feels wrong.
I look at the calendar on my wall, at the black Expo 29 scribbled into its predetermined box, and I feel a lump in my throat. We live our lives by dates. We remember things with dates, we live the present by date and we look forward to dates. So dropping an entire day from our calendars, an entire date for potential memories, activities and plans gone, for three years every four, just seems wrong.
Everything serves a purpose; some purposes just shine a little more brightly than others. Aside from keeping the rest of our calendar as we know it in line, Leap Day is a date that people have lived their lives. For some people, it’s attached to a memory. For some, a birthday, and for some, it’s just another day. Some people won’t realize Leap Day has come until it’s far gone, and they won’t care to think that it won’t be back for four years.
To me, this day so easily forgotten is not so different from my life. My existence matters. Or at least, I usually think it does. I am a daughter, a sister, a friend. I am a thinker, and a doer and an individual. So my existence must matter. If it didn’t, I wouldn’t be here. But if something so crucial as a day can be wiped clean from the white board where we live our lives, then surely there’s nothing keeping my life, my purpose, from being swept right off the face of our Earth. My life may count as little more than dust in the wind if I don’t make it something more.
If I don’t believe whole-heartedly in a purpose for my life, and I have nothing to pull for, nothing to strive after, then I won’t count. But this life of mine is going to count. I will pull and push and I will strive for more from my life until my heart gives out. I won’t settle for passivity as I watch my purpose be erased from the calendar. I don’t want to miss another day.
