Birthday Ponderings

Today is the first day of my 42nd trip around the sun. For the past several weeks, Facebook has been unrelenting in asking me to choose a charitable organization for them to promote so my friends and family could send donations in my honour. The idea is noble and I know of multiple organizations run by good people doing good things. However, after sitting with the thought for awhile, what I really want for my birthday (and for Christmas, anniversary, Mother's Day, etc.) from now until the end of time is for all of us humans to practice being a little gentler with one another. After the very public grief around the loss of Kate Spade and Anthony Boudain and the hauntingly beautiful performance by the drama club from Majorie Stoneman Douglas High School at the Tony's, it seems a fitting request. I'm committed to being intentional about adding more care and real listening to my days, to extending grace when the opportunity arises, to telling my people how glad I am they're in my life. And I'm going to ask that we all try to do the same - when you do it, it will not only be a birthday gift to me, but even better, a gift to the world and the people who may hear a message of hope when they were beginning to think all hope had been lost.

Today's celebration of the first day my parents met me has been a delightfully 'normal' day, with the exception that Philip is out of town on business and I palpably experienced hope in my new professional community. We all got up and had breakfast before Henry and I went to prepare for music camp at the preschool. I arrived to find my office had been decorated in the happiest of colours and filled with some of my favourite things - right down to the red and purple tissue paper in the gift bag on my desk (my favourite colours). There were tasty doughnuts, streamers, balloons and well wishes and I felt known - known in a place to which I'm very new and I'm still learning the ropes. We finished our day and came home for a rest, then wandered to Target to pick up a birthday gift for one of the kids' friends and came back home to make dinner. We had an intermittent candlelight dinner thanks to a stellar summer thunderstorm that rumbled through taking our power with it for a bit. The kids cleaned the kitchen and I was in my pajamas by 6:15pm. While they showered, I did some computer work, talked on the phone with my parents, talked to Philip and wallowed in the goodness of Facebook birthday wishes. It really was a lovely day. To answer Facebook's question about where I'll 'donate' my birthday, I suppose my answer is I'm plugging into HOPE. My money will go to support some very honourable people and organizations doing good things and my time and energy will go to really trying to engage with people so they may also feel known -
even when they're the newbie.

Cheers to this next trip around the sun and thank you to all who have shepherded me along the way to this place - I'm grateful.