Today is my birthday.  I am 53 years old.  Surprisingly enough, I’m not bothered by the number of years anymore.

“The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been”.  Madeline L’Engle

That quote resonates with me today.  At 53 I do feel a bit wiser and I appreciate the past experiences that formed who I am now.  Some of the small things don’t bother me as much.  I am slower to anger and argument.  I don’t feel the need to convince everyone to think what I think and to be “right”.  I recognize that mean people exist and that is neither my fault or really my problem.  I’m quicker to look for the root of the problem and less likely to react without thinking things through.  I’m still far from perfect, but in looking back I can see that I’ve grown and matured and am a better person than I was.

I don’t mean to sound like I’ve reached perfection.  Far from it!  I have the ability to be as irrationally emotional, short-tempered, sarcastic and vindictive as ever.  I’d like to believe that I’m slower to exhibit those behaviors.  I hope that I am calmer and nicer.  It feels like I am.

“There are two great days in a person’s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why.”  William Barclay

I did a bit of research today and found that nothing really exciting happened in history on September 17th.  Nothing that seemed particularly interesting to me anyway.  So I guess that I’ll be happy enough that I was born…and that in the last year I have learned a lot about why I’m alive…about what makes me feel alive.  It’s tempting to look back and dismiss some of the things I’ve done in the past as boring or mundane.  I spent many years searching for great meaning and yearning for significant accomplishments.

But the moments and minutes and hours of my past combine to write the story that is me.  An insecure child of very human parents, sister, student, friend, wife, mom, depressed and anxious adult, artist, writer, and very human Kelly.  Every day in the past was important.  Today is my birthday.  I look forward to every day of my future…the good, the bad, the boring, the exciting, the everyday, and the extraordinary.  I am thankful to be alive…creating, nurturing, loving, and learning to be loved.

“Today I am me?  That is truer than true?  There is no one alive who is me-er than me!”  Dr. Seuss (with a bit of creative pronoun changing)