TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY

I wish I had something really poetic to say, but everything I think of seems like a cliche.  Another year has passed.  I've grown, I've stumbled, I've yelled, I've laughed, and I've cried.  I've hugged people so hard in an attempt to memorize the way they feel in my arms, and I've fought against expectations to carve out my own space.  And you know what?  That to me means a year well lived.

Each birthday I always tell myself I'm going to make this the best year yet.  I'm going to take chances and live life to the fullest and not let time pass me by.  I have done that this past year in my own way.  Three birthdays ago, I wrote a letter to myself reflecting on all the reading I had done to find what the whole meaning of this life is.  That note, along with the following passage from one of my favorite books, still rings true to me today.

"And, looking back, we see Romance--that subtle things that is mirage--that is life.  It is the goodness of the years we have lived through, of the old time when we did this or that, when we dwelt here or there.  Looking back it seems a wonderful enough thing that I who am this, and she who is that, commencing so far away a life that, after such sufferings borne together and apart, ended so tranquilly there in a world so stable--that she and I should have passed through so much, good chance and evil chance, sad hours and joyful, all lived down and swept away into the little heap of dust that is life.  This, too, is Romance!"  --Romance by Joseph Conrad  

And that's where the name of my blog came from.  So today I'm putting on my party hat and ringing in another year of this wonderful existence.

**To see my birthday party from last year where I went DIY crazy, see here.  Please excuse the quality of the pictures.  This was in the infancy of my blog, and I wish I could go back in time and get better quality pictures from this time.