Start Every Day...

Dear Friends,

Last week the Facebook memory popped up, with a quote urging me to start every day like it's my birthday.

Well it was my birthday, so I said...

...thank you, yes, I will start today like it's my big day.

Now first, I have loved birthdays since forever ago. For many years, my mother would don her sweet pink and orange striped dress, deck our home in streamers and make cherry chip cakes with ballerina candle holders. As a young girl, I knew my birthstone to be a diamond, but happily settled for plastic dazzlers to bedeck my fingers. One year I received a bike, and am reminded of that glee...by the photo of my father and me, ready for the maiden ride with my hair pulled back in a 70's scarf and fancy black patent leather "party" shoes.

And this love for parties and streamers didn't change as I aged...sometimes I would hand out cupcakes to other people for my big day...assuring my sons that we didn't have birth days in our family, but birth weeks. Though truth be told some years I might have seemed a little - ahem - indignant on my day, if it wasn't celebrated enough. Last year my "chemo" birthday was frankly a disappointing drag, so I was nearly delirious with cheer on the special day last week, all stitched up and healed now.

But it had a tinge of sober too, as flying toward something dire had reminded me of our finite time on earth. A reminder that the parties won't last forever. They won't, they can't, for any of us; so I counted my gifts from the year.

To the casual observer, I had nothing to show but a long bad slog; the truth couldn't be further...

...for this year brought riches more valuable than all the birthstone diamonds in the world.

First gift, slowness. Yup, I am sort of slow these days. Every single step, focus Julie focus, or else...well my last tumble was especially impressionable, as I lay on the floor, with my cell phone having flown out the door and into the garage. Now one might deduce this pace to be a frustrating state of affairs. Nope, it's not. For when one moves more slowly, it is peaceful, relaxing, and mindful. What I used to try to achieve through meditation classes, I now have most of the time. Recently I read an article about the virtues of slowing down to reduce anxiety...for sure, my slow self nods, this is true.

Second gift, disruption. It didn't take long to realize that stuff would need to be done differently. Once home from the hospital after surgery, I headed up the stairs on my butt. One might guess this to be vexing and inefficient, but it is not. Moving in such a way builds arm muscles, and there's that mindful matter again...while going up the stairs in such an unaccustomed way, I'm not huffing and tripping over my feet with mind a-twirl. And it's even fun to do something differently...like a five-year-old, when stairs seemed a playground to us. Different, not wrong, right? Lastly, of perhaps most import, it is a good thing to consider new ways...as there is lots of difficulty in the world that could use our out-of-the box thinking.

Third gift, life. The massive, ginormous, bazillion dollar gift...the cherry on that cherry chip cake. Our time isn't assumed, and it won't be forever for any of us. But I was given more time, hopefully a lot more. So pinky swear, I won't take birthday parties or random days for granted....because even if it all gets hard sometimes, life is gosh darn precious and special...a circus at Disneyland with cotton candy, while a magic unicorn grants me a thousand wishes and I'm a fairy princess. Every morning when my feet hit the floor...it's like that time my parents told me we were going to Shakey's Pizza, and my legs flew over and around the flower garden to get to that car ASAP. Now a big caveat: I cry some days, filled with a crater of sadness, don't get me wrong...it happens to all of us. But if we follow good riptide strategy, ride those waves and don't fight them...Disneyland will loom again on our horizon, sure and real.

So happy birthday to me, happy birthday to you...

...every day of the year.

Love,

Julie

xxoo