Another year, another birthday right? I feel like for some people (at least me), birthdays always bring about a strange sense of nostalgia and this year was no exception for me.
When I was younger and wanted to be like my big sister, Kristin, I would listen to her Switchfoot and Relient K CD’s to feel cool. There is a song by Switchfoot called Twenty-Four. The song was written by one of the vocalists and it is about him being 24 and a little unsure about life. (The whole album by the way is pretty dang good). I remember thinking, wow 24 is so old. Well.. here I am folks.
This year was extra special for me because I felt like I got to celebrate with all of my people. My family, my friends and of course – Jonas the cat. I know that a birthday is just a day, but I have come to love celebrating birthdays, including my own. It is a chance to celebrate life! To celebrate that that person was born. That they are alive and living this crazy life that seems to always be shifting and moving like tectonic plates of experiences.
To reminisce on past birthdays brings back a wave of different emotions. Feeling young and free, feeling loved and special, feeling isolated and lonely, feeling full of sugar and pizza. All the feels. The past two years have been especially special. I think I had the most emotions about getting older last year because I was in Italy hanging out by myself at a pizza joint.
I met some other au pairs about a week before my birthday and meeting them restored some of my faith in humanity and the world (maybe exaggerating a little bit)… Because these people didn’t know me at all and wanted to celebrate my life with me. The gestures that these complete strangers made, despite how small they may seem, were huge to me in that season of feeling isolated yet so alive.
The kindness of other people continues to amaze me and seem to come at a time when I don’t like most people and have a bad attitude towards the human race – so aka I need a reminder that not all people are bad and its usually a big slap in the face.
This year, my faith was already pretty strong in humanity but was multiplied by the love and kindness I felt/feel in this season of my life. From my parents taking a poor single girl out for dinner, to apple picking with my cousins and nephews, to so many of my favorite beautiful souls gathering to celebrate, finished out by hanging out with Ben Rector and listening to his lovely voice sing about this exact craziness of life. The weekend left me feeling full of all the best foods but also full of life and gratitude. It left me feeling alive and so excited to be alive.
Every day alone might not be the craziest best day of my life, but combined, my days make up a pretty damn crazy good life.
Feeling a little bit older and wiser with new goals for (EEK) 25. Feeling like this adult thing is something that nobody ever really is good at, we all just fake it a little bit. Feeling so grateful for another year and another birthday.
Now go listen to Ben Rector and you’ll love life a little bit more today 🙂
