So my birthday was last Friday, and I thank you all for sending me good tidings and giving me great joy. I was most pleased, I was =) still am =) I just read Rachel's page and she just got another year wiser, too, and so I feel inspired to drop in on you because I hate how working zaps away my energy to journal.
At any rate, my sister and I were able, for only the 3rd time in 15 years, to spend our birthday together. (As most of you know, we share the same birthday, but are 9 years apart.) It has been a most marvelous time, having her home to laugh and joke with, shop with and talk to, etc, you know, sisterly stuff. She is leaving tomorrow, though, and so I have to remember to wear clear mascara for our journey to the airport.
Anyway, it's been funny hearing most of our family wish us Happy Birthday because almost everyone has had the same thing to say which follows somewhat along these lines: Kim is older, but hipper in the sense that she doesn't look or act (for the most part) a day over the 25 years I'm now claiming. I, on the other hand, am the "old soul" of the two, the one that everyone winds up confiding in and turning to for all sorts of advice. One of my parents' favorite things to say about me is "Out of the mouths of babes," and while I sheepishly swat those sorts of adages away as aging devices, I have to admit there is some truth in them. But don't ask me where the old soul comes from or where 'tis been for I cannot say (it'd probably take too long anyway, and I'm already a bit long-winded).
But with a new year and a birthday in the same week, I have to say there's been a lot of self-reflection going on and like Rachel, I feel about this year a sense of goodness and potential that I've not felt before. I re-read my journals from the past 4 or 5 years and so there is evidence to support my claim. I just feel that I am finally approaching (or have approached) the time in my life where everything that I have endured up until now is blossoming fruit at last.
In nearly every facet of my life I sincerely don't feel as I used to feel and I don't regard things in the same light. I'm not saying that my birth date magically poofed this rationalization into being, but it has encouraged me to take stock, and with that I'm cashing in...