Another year older, another year wiser

I always blog on my birthday. Even if I can’t make enough sense of my thoughts to formulate even a quasi-interesting entry, I try to make a statement about the progress of my journey, how it feels, what I’m doing…

My 32nd year of life began with a family surprise party at my sister’s pool, and ended on a peaceful Sunday morning at a beautiful spa with some of my greatest allies. Two celebrations, but with a whole lot of chaos in between - It’s hard to imagine that one single year could have brought so many changes and challenges. Year 32 filled my heart with equal parts joy and pain, laughter, memories, struggles, awakenings, new loves and new friends. But rather than focus on what went wrong or even what came out right, I am focused now only on the fact that I survived, and for that I am so grateful. I survived one of the most challenging, emotional years of my relatively young life, and I came out the other end a little bit wiser, a little bit stronger, and with a new army of supporters at my side.

Life is such a beautiful, intoxicating, tragic thing. You really just never know what each day will bring. My hope for my 33rd year is that I continue to survive, that the joy eclipses the pain and that the laughter outlasts the tears. Someone once told me that every day you wake up to see the sun again is like a tiny victory. In consideration of that, I will call the past year a victory of epic proportions.

Happy birthday, self. You made it.