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Happy Birthday to me!  I don't really have anything super insightful to note about turning another year older.  Mainly, there's a furrow between my eyebrows that's deepened over this past year and it really bugs me.  Confession:  I actually googled the word "Botox" last night.  Me:  miss feminist, miss don't do anything too artificial to preserve your looks - yep I did it.  Because - jeez!  That sucker wasn't supposed to show up until I turned at least 40! 

So with another year of age comes another little battle scar.  I wouldn't trade that furrow for the inner changes I've experienced this past year.  Things like courage, persistence, strength, and resilience aren't easily measured or seen from the outside.  However, these traits I'm developing are serving  me well and are things I feel proud of.   This past year on planet earth has been a good year for me.  When my head hit the pillow last night I prayed my favorite prayer:  "Thank You". 

In honor of my birthday I had to post the following from Anne Lamott:

But if the fortune of the girl is in the newness, in being the bud, and the fortune of the crone is in the freedom, the lack of attachment or clinging, where does that leave a youngish middle-aged American woman like me?  Maybe it leaves me needing to consider how wealthy I am in the knowledge that the girl of my past is still in me while a marvelous dread locked crone is in the future–and that I hold both of these females inside.  Coming out of the movie that night, I realize that I want what the crones have:  time for all those long deep breaths, time to watch more closely, time to learn to enjoy what I’ve always been afraid of–the sag and the invisibility, the ease of understanding the life is not about doing.  The crones understand this, and it gives them all kinds of time–time to get much less done, time for all these holy moments.  So I’ve been thinking about how, realistically, I am probably not going to lose five pounds before I see the guy I like again, or have a little canopy above my eyes snipped off.  And how what I am going to do instead is to begin practicing crone hood as soon as possible:  to watch, smile, dance.  –Anne Lamott from Traveling Mercies:  Some Thoughts on Faith

I can't wait to watch, smile and dance some more this year!