Birthday Reflections
🎂 My birthday is near… Each year I ricochet between wanting to go all out, and wanting to switch off and just breathe.
Last year, I celebrated with 35 friends at a skating rink, channeling my inner child with wobbly loops around the rink. This year, I really don’t want that! I’m thinking: time with my husband and son, a great cake, and some space just to be..
💭 At Habitat for Humanity last week, I spotted a discarded "World's Best Grandpa" mug. Maybe it’s my birthday looming, but honestly, it made me feel a little melancholy.
Once, this mug was maybe someone's cherished gift. Now it sat there in the store, discarded. Sad, right?
It got me thinking about transitions. We focus so much on the (albeit sometimes nervous) excitement of change - the new job, the bigger house, the next chapter. But there's also a quiet mourning for what we leave behind: the comfortable routines, the familiar faces, the daily rituals.
✨ Of course, pursuing resilience means holding both truths – that we can be excited about where we're going while honoring what we're leaving behind. That it's okay to feel both strong and tender as we navigate change.
Looking at my own cherished coffee mug (a little mug with a woman in heels and a pack of dogs that I frequently photograph holding while petting a cat), I'm reminded that everything we love is temporary. Not to make us sad, but to make us present. To remind us to really taste our morning coffee, to fully show up for impromptu living room dance parties, to take time out at the start of that Teams call to check in with your colleagues.
👉 So as I go into my birthday this weekend, my only rule is to enjoy it, whatever it is. To appreciate what I have right now.
Happy Birthday to me! ❤️
