they say it's your birthday..well it's my birthday too yeah!

Sooooooooooo...it's that time of year again. The time that reminds me that I'm one more day closer to death than I was yesterday.  I know, I know..you may be thinking how negative that is...but it's true isn't it?  I mean none of us are here forever..at least not in this form.  If I died today people would be able to say that I lived a full life; some don't make it to this age.  Do I think about death..well yeah..I actually do.  I mean, I was lying in my hammock, looking up at our palm trees thinking that they're at least thirty years old.  Thinking that is how long it probably took them to grow so tall and beautiful.





I thought about the concept of thirty years. I thought about it because in the past, I wouldn't have.  I would have just wondered what sort of tree I could plant and see the fruit of it's growth in thirty years.  In thirty years I'll be in my 90's, that is if I live to be in my 90's.  Odds are that I won't because no one on my side of the family actually did live to be that old.


Okay, so where was I?  Oh yeah, my birthday is tomorrow.  Since I had my "epic birthday" two years ago my whole mentality has changed.  It hasn't changed intentionally, it just has changed. Before the epic, I would look at women in their 30's and say to myself with relatively strong confidence: "yeah, I can do that, or can be that or........whatever".   Now I don't do that.  I realize that there are some opportunites that are now gone.  I used to believe that my whole life was before me.  Because it was.  Now, subtly and ever so slowly, it has changed.  My life is mostly behind me.  Not to say that I don't have so much more to offer, because I know that I do...it's just...well...limited.


I love beauty and I love to be beautiful.  I have worked very hard at staying or becoming a beauity.  Maybe it was because my father always told me how beautiful I was. Once, when I was quite over weight, he offered me $1000 to  lose the weight.  I didn't though. But in any case, I do love to feel beautiful, sexy and young.  Now, after the epic...I realize the limitations of "beauty" and "young".  I am proud of my strength, I am grateful for my health, and I look in the mirror and see a beautiful woman.  Still...the end is near.  How near I'm not so sure...but it is near at least by twenty years.


As far as my inward beauty: I still care deeply for the children of this world..of this country.  I still have this gift, that I believe was given to me by God himself, to work with the young.  I am grateful that I am doing this and I am so grateful that for most of my life I have made a difference in a lot of young people's life.  I have loved them unconditionally and have tried to show them that they are the jewels of life...that their potential is limitless and is ahead of them.




Mine is not...


So, tomorrow I will celebrate the fact that 62 years ago, my mother pushed me out of her being and I gulped my first breath of this life.  It hasn't been easy breathing the air of this life..but it has been rich.  I realize the power that I was born with because I believe that I was created in the image of God.  But I also realize that God is more powerful and has been with me through ALL of this journey; loving me, trying to show me he is there, and feeling all of the feelings I have felt.  I am grateful for the revalation of faith..for the revalation of Jesus, whom I love.  I love him imperfectly...but I think he's okay with that.



This particular birthday is not "epic"...Frankly I think I'm done with "epic birthdays".  But it is, in fact, a reminder that life is a gift and that I  need to embrace it, because my days in this chapter of my being, are numbered.

Happy birthday to me!!!