i was so much older then, i'm younger than that now...

twas my birthday on saturday! to celebrate i wore (for the first time) a beautiful vintage indian dress that i thrifted back in the early summer. it has some of my favorite colors: raspberry wine and cherry blossom pink, with a quilted yoke and dangly bell ties. i went with darin up to the mountainy forest where an unexpected winterland awaited and an icy wind blew, snacking on figs and tabouli in the warm car, listening to leonard cohen, daydreaming, reading, exploring, wrapping myself in an old quilt.

it's weird growing older, and i love it, pretty much everything about it. i love silver hairs and confidence and being stoked on my one and only loveable body just the way it is, hips and thighs and belly and rounded edges and healthy hair. i love laugh crinkles and expansive tastes in foods and drinks (when you're young you think you hate avocadoes, eggplant, bleu cheese, how wrong you were!), love the ability to walk anywhere for as long as i'd like, and the ability to converse with an impossibly wide range of people, and the knowledge that nature and fun and beauty and bliss and love are what matter. i love being able to wear anything i like no matter what anyone thinks of it. i like having strong relationships with friends and family and husband that no drama can tangle.

the only "weird" part is when you are not a hundred percent sure of your purpose and you are in your 30s. now i don't give a damn what anyone thinks of me or expects from me, but i do give a damn what i think of myself, and sometimes i still wonder where i am headed. i still have a thousand dreams, uncorralled, like i did when i was 17, 22, 27. i still want to make and sell arts and crafts, to sing in a band, to bellydance in greece, to travel the world, to write stories and novels, to be a poet, to be a drifter, to live a hermit life, to be a socialite, to design dresses, to get a PhD, to own a vintage clothing shop, to direct a film, to rescue animals, to change people's minds, to spread love, to change the world. but most of all, of course, i want to have a bunch of babies and be a mother. that is just in my nature. and i am now 34 years old and so in the grand scheme of things, my time is running short.

but i also don't want to rely on having babies or getting pregnant or being a mother in the traditional sense as the only true path to purpose in life. as much as i love and cherish that dream, like i always have since i was six years old, i want to be a purposeful person even without relying only upon the dream of continuing my d.n.a. i mean, i do think darin and i have good dna ;) and i really really hope we can make a baby or two before our time is up. but i realized, turning 34, that i need to be in control of my life no matter what. and in love with it and all the possibilities, forever. i don't want to sit around feeling like, what have i done that matters? just because i haven't had a kid. i want to do things that matter anyway. now. and every year as another birthday encounters me, to know that my life is rich and full and storied and loved; that therein lies the purpose.

to know that as long as i am surrounded by so much love, there is no way i will not become my own best person, to realize my own full potential, as long as i allow myself to be free and open. to find the secret passageways, to inscribe the mysteries, to listen, to take heed, to entertain all thoughts at once.

to talk about things that matter, to hand over my heart, to sometimes cry jaggedly, to be intoxicated with the wild joy of living, to sing. to give, give, give and grow always.

and send these cares to the mountain winds my friends, and trust that motherhood will come to me by and by.

this i give myself for my birthday.