Tomorrow is my birthday. I get to pick what I want for dinner and S.O. will make it and have the kids clean the kitchen. Rowan is attempting to convince me that we should take the day off of lessons since it’s my birthday… she has a knack for choosing “presents” that benefit both the recipient as well as herself.

This weekend the real festivities begin. S.O. and I will head down to our favorite local restaurant and start with oysters on the half shell and Bloody Marys and then spend the next few hours munching and drinking our favorite beer. My dad and stepmom will join us and the four of us will have more than a few laughs. I spent my birthday last year the very same way and decided I wanted to do it every year.

I’ve been thinking about being in my 30′s, sure there is a definite shift from my twenties at the moment getting older seems to foster a “go with the flow” sort of mellowing that I’ve always needed. I don’t have any profound insights though. Maybe that’s the thing about getting older (not that I think I’m old but I’m aging we all are) you just realize how little you really knew and how much less you actually know now. I keep thinking about that old saying, “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” and I think maybe that’s the secret as you age.

The things that have occurred to me are the difference in stages of life. How much time has passed. My parents have now been divorced almost twice as long as they were married and a chunk of my life is encapsulated in their thirteen years of co-existence. My grandmother has been dead for twenty six years and I spent the first twenty years of that haunted by memories, terrified of losing someone I love, and missing her terribly, eight short years affected twenty. My grandfather has been gone thirteen years and my father-in-law for almost twelve.

Yet, out of those three I’ve ended up with more of a spiritual connection with my father-in-law which I find surprising and comforting at the same time. He walks around my house and S.O. and I catch glimpses of his tall frame rounding a corner. Once we saw it at the same time. It’s not a haunting by any stretch, it’s just a relative visiting. Sometimes it bothers me that my grandparents aren’t around. I can’t claim to feel them, see them, or experience them in any way beyond my grandfather occasionally contacting me in a dream. The thing is, over the last couple of years I’ve just sort of opened up to this and allowed whatever was going to happen to just happen, whereas before I would have struggled with fear, accepting death, and my own insecurities.

I’ve always resisted change and uncomfortable situations. My grandmother died and my body resisted physically and I became very ill. Later even going with the process of labor and delivery somehow my body would find a way to struggle against the tide even when I was consciously committed to working with it.

My entire twenties were just another exercise in that struggle against flow. Fighting to make a place for myself in the universe. Now I look back and realize that your place isn’t necessarily made as much as it is found. Admittedly, I’m still searching, exploring, and gingerly peeking into new windows. I don’t think I’ve really found my place, my specialty, my “sweet spot”.

Our lives are built on experiences and exchanges with other people. It shapes and molds us and only the most aware can affect how it molds and changes them. Awareness is something I struggle with constantly, being in the moment, focusing on that plane instead of stretching out and worrying about next week, month or year.

One morning I woke up and looked at the pills I was about to take and I realized that I felt more positive and together emotionally than I have in a long, long time. Everything just felt right, so I cut my anti-depressant in half, that was 7 days ago. I haven’t regretted it once. Before I might have been neurotically marking days on the calendar for the next step down, anticipating the moment of freedom and forcing the process along with dogged determination. But after that moment of clarity seven days ago the only thing I’m determined to do is wait for the next morning when it just feels right.

Somewhere along the long road of “I can eat anything” to “Wow, I’m going to punish and restrict myself severely to make up for all that weight I gained” I realized that it’s no longer based on how I look but how I feel. Most days I feel like shit. Bloated, uncomfortable, bulky, gross. The days I feel the best are when I’m on top of my diet, drinking loads of water, and going for mental, emotional, and physical clarity rather than the pair of jeans I really want to encase my ass in.

I haven’t dropped any pounds, but mentally I’m feeling a shift and I know losing the weight is going to follow because I feel the change coming in my bones. Funny how through most of my twenties the only time I had feelings in my bones were when I wanted to jump someone else’s or broke one of my own.

I don’t know where I’m going or what I’m doing, but I no longer feel like I’m sitting around waiting for something to happen either. Right or wrong, forward, backward, or sideways I’m just moving.

The eve of my birthday and these are the thoughts running through my mind. I’m happy to still be here, still in the game, breathing and all that. I’m not just focusing on the negatives, I’m just sort of amazed at time and the passing of it and the moments neatly tucked into their own pigeon-holes along this long stretching line of time.