Looking at 35

Taken on my 35th birthday. thanks, AmyG

I tend to get reflective this time of year.  Perhaps it's because I associate fall with the new school year and new beginnings, or maybe it's because my birthday falls in September.  Whatever it is, I've always been this way.

Except this year.

Whenever my birthday approaches, I usually make these elaborate lists of things I want to do in the next year - goals I want to accomplish, places I want to see, things I want to do.  I get really detailed and technical, outlining plans and defining milestones.

Except this year.

I started to really analyze why I was feeling this way - it's just so weird for me.  But even that took me way more inside my head than I wanted to be.

And so I decided to just go with it.

I'm truly happier than I have ever been.  Yes, there are struggles.  Yes, there are bad days and hard times.  Yes, I get frustrated and lonely and tired.  But underneath all of that, at the very center of myself, I feel a deep and abiding sense of goodness, of peace and of gratitude.  I feel more comfortable in my skin than I have ever been, and I feel more alive and whole than I have ever felt.

I'm finding that it's really a beautiful way to live.

So I have decided to just keep doing what I'm doing...living the life that makes me happy and gives me so many moments of joy and light.  To keep focusing on putting first things first and living a healthy and simple life.

It's working for me. 

Why mess with a good thing, right?

both of us on our birthday - have I mentioned that I love this girl?