Thirty One

Thirty One….what can I say, it looks a little different than I expected. Right now it looks like me sitting here in my pj’s with a soggy bowl of cereal. I’m not ungrateful; I just find it funny that this is actually what I want to be doing right now. For my Birthday my husband updated my computer and relieved me from any parenting duties which is what I wanted and, no joke, best gift ever! Now, we all know that I love my kids, but I love a good guilt free break. All requests have been diverted to the Dad! If I leave for five minutes, the second after I walk in the door my kids are all over me for something to drink. It’s like our house turns into the Mojave Desert when I leave. I’m not sure what my kids are wearing to bed or if their teeth were brushed, but who cares IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!
When I was younger I loved my birthday for different reasons. For instance, when I turned seven I got the Barbie of my dreams. It came with a curling Iron to do Barbie’s hair. When I was sixteen I got a car which was amazing. But then I got older and Birthday’s became about milestones. When I turned 18 I knew I would be graduating high school and leaving for college; for that Birthday the gift was adulthood and independence. When I turned 21 the gift was a mission call from my church to Florida. Then a few days before I turned 24, the gift was marriage. I married my best friends, which truly is my favorite birthday gift (besides the Sephora makeup kit he got me last year)!
Since I turned 28, my Birthdays have become a time of reflection, a time to check in with myself. It all started with the breakdown of twenty-ten. For some reason I got a little frantic on that Birthday, “ Ahh I’m twenty-eight and feel like I have accomplished nothing”. It turns out it was just me being my prego self and at the time we were living with my parents. So… let’s just say you don’t want to send out your Christmas cards with your patent’s return address.
I will admit that every year stings a little. I never thought I would care about getting older, but I do. I swear I never thought I’d get grey hair and not only do I have a few, but I found a grey eyebrow hair! Seriously… just check me into a home; the eyebrows are giving up, how they can do this to me!?
So thirty-one, the check in this year looks a little like this: Am I happy? Yes, I truly am happy. Do I have the love and support I want and need? Yes, I am truly blessed. Do I love myself (not to be confused with being in love with myself)? Yes, I can say that I do. Are there things I want to change about myself? Yes and those things I will work on privately, mostly because I have too much pride to tell you my vices. But in all seriousness, I am grateful to be thirty-one. To have lived on this earth, at this time, with the love of dear ones and dear ones to love is a gift. Truly, what more could I want?