Birthday

Today is my birthday... It's also my mom's birthday, as well as about four other people I know pretty well, including my former father-in-law.

Birthdays have always been fascinating to me. They are so personal, when remembered, and a wonderful event to celebrate our own new year. But to me, Facebook has made sharing that wish become less special. We got a reminder and an easy way to punch out a billboard proclaiming: "Hey, Happy Birthday! Look -- I remembered!!" Yes, I've been guilty of that, but I realized how impersonal it could have been seen.

(Please don't take this criticism, or that I don't appreciate the wonderful notes I've gotten today. Just sharing my philosophical view on the practice.)

And so today, I was blessed by kind wishes, via email, post and call. My friends provided meals for me, and the opportunity for wonderful conversation and inspiring talk. But the best gift: 30 minutes at Rick's Diner with Drew this morning, watching him carefully fold bacon onto his biscuit because he carefully ate the same. So wonderfully inventive and quite particular, and yet, ok wearing a pair of pants inside out and a shirt on backward...

In speaking about our walks through life, today I wrote: the heart is an insatiably omnivorous organ... and the head is designed to make it gorge on the worst possible things occasionally.

The heart is inpatient or impetuous when it has what it truly needs, and in constant upheaval when that reality becomes evident after loss.

This year, my eyes will stay open, I will continue to speak the truth and be who I am without deception or fear. I will appreciate my gifts, my opportunities and my children every day. I will remain confident in how I feel and see what the journey will be like each day, reflecting less on the past, and worrying less about the future.

D300 180mm Micro f/8 1/90 ISO 200