Vellichor Ink

I turned 41 today.

It was an unexpected day with a sick teen and getting stuck in a car wash twice. But it was also filled with phone calls and FaceTimes and messages galore, and love and laughter, birthday pancakes and yellow cake with homemade chocolate sauce and blowing candles out with my parents–in person for the second year in a row–and letting our foster pup go to his forever home, and new music from a favorite band, a new episode of a favorite show, and yoga and writing, and re-reading my comfort series, and puppy cuddles and kisses, a chocolate cupcake from a kindred spirit, and joy…so much quiet joy.

Last year I blew out candles on my 40th birthday with absolutely no bandwidth for joy–of the loud or quiet variety. I was trying my damnedest to just hold it together. And I was hanging on by a thread.

The last year has been a reckoning –loss of identity, loss of self, of how we thought life would look…the foundation beneath us was shifting sands, at best. But it’s also been a year of incredible growth. Of some pretty big firsts along with the lasts. Settling in to a house that’s all our own. Of finding people here who love and support me and just…get me. It’s been spending time with our families and seeing our niece and nephew enough that it doesn’t feel like a novelty anymore—it just feels good and happy. It’s been sharing my words around a table with a group of women who have held me so close this year and are teaching me to love this messy version of myself. It was a crazy road trip with our people that gave me memories for a lifetime and more Hot-to-Go than I ever thought I’d hear. It’s been adventuring to a new country and a remembering of why that’s such a vital part of who I am. It’s been more walks than I can count and one wild backpacking trip. It’s been tears and laughter and holding on and letting go. Of shedding skin that doesn’t fit anymore to make room for some that does. It’s been grief and celebrations together and just so much more.

And we’re still figuring everything out. What does life look like now in this season of life? Who am I? What do I want out of life? What do I want to leave behind?

But blowing out my candles today I didn’t wish for peace. Or quiet. Or calm. Which, I am SURE was all I wished for last year. I wished for a wish that’s just a wish, not a desperate plea out to the universe. And it feels so much better today, and I am so looking forward to this year and all it has in store and to be honest? That’s the greatest birthday gift I could ever ask for. (Although a new puppy was pretty great, too!)