32 For A Moment

“15 there's still time for you Time to buy and time to lose 15, there's never a wish better than this When you only got a hundred years to live.”

- Five For Fighting, 100 Years -

Yep. It's the obligatory birthday post!

For eight years I've been celebrating my birthday on my blog--posts filled with gratitude and memories and wishes for the future. Today, I'm celebrating something more...

Truth be told, I didn't think I'd make it past thirty. Not only because I was diagnosed with late-stage Lyme Disease when I was 29, and that was a hell I didn't think I'd ever make it through. But because there's always been this fear that resided in the far corner of my mind that whispered that thirty was it--and I'm not the only one, it seems. A quick Google search shows it's not an uncommon anxiety; a deeper spiritual study says that thirty is the age at which many people experience a spiritual transformation, a trancendence, a rebirth. The decaying of old thoughts to awaken the new. If that's the case, I was right on schedule.

But that was then, when birthdays meant a celebration for being alive, when all I had left was a question of whether or not I had a future, when this illness threatened even that. Today, I'm celebrating life. Life itself--full of beauty and wonder and love. Waking up to pure joy in a tiny, four-legged body as she nuzzles your neck; opening your eyes to see your other muttface wagging his tail and offering sweet, lazy kisses. Stepping out the back door to see the sun peeking past the clouds--so far away, still leaving traces of its warmth along your skin, like it's reminding you it will always be there despite its light years' distance. Kids shouting in the alleyway, their sneakers slapping against the pavement as they play; the soft strains of classical music filtering through the open window of my neighbor's house; the familiarity of my family's voices on the other end of the phone line when they call to say 'Happy Birthday,' where underneath those words the I love you sings.

This is life--time moving so quickly and not fast enough, each of us growing and tranforming with every passing second while the earth keeps spinning--a world within and without us.

This is life--a collection of simple joys that create a world where strangers become friends and moments become memories and those memories turn to stories that become the foundation of who you are. This is life. Beautiful, wonderful, love-filled life. Today, I'm celebrating this.