“Another trip around seems worth celebrating.”
August is my birthday month, and I’m turning 48.
I have always loved my birthday. I mean, as far back as I can remember, I loved it.
There is a picture of me somewhere when I was little wearing a crown my mom made out of cardboard and covered with aluminum foil, and I am smiling so hard my cheeks look like they might crack. It certainly wasn’t an expensive crown, but judging by the look on my face, you would have thought I had just been crowned queen of something very important.
My first real birthday party wasn’t until I was nine. It was a pool party, although the only kids there were my siblings, and the rest of the guests were a bunch of adults, so apparently I was not exactly running with a huge social circle at nine years old. But I remember being happy.
I remember swimming, everyone being there, and then when my mom brought out a German chocolate cake while everybody sang Happy Birthday to me. For some reason, that memory has always stuck with me. It wasn’t some giant elaborate party. I don’t remember decorations or presents, I just remember feeling special for that moment.
I think that is what birthdays have always been for me. Of course, I like cake and presents and going out and doing something fun, but underneath all of that, I think I have always loved the simple acknowledgement of being here. Another year happened. I got another trip around.
I have never been someone who is thrilled about every part of getting older, and I am definitely not going to pretend I am excited to see what new and interesting plans gravity may have for my face at 48, but getting older and being grateful that you get to get older are two different things. I have always felt lucky to have another birthday.
One of the birthdays I think about the most was my 30th, when I went white-water rafting. If you have ever been rafting, you know that there are stretches where it is completely chaotic. The water is throwing the raft around, someone is yelling at you to paddle, you’re trying not to fall out, and somehow you are laughing and terrified at the same time. It is loud and turbulent and exciting and a little insane. Then you get through the rapids and suddenly the river changes. Everything becomes quiet. You drift into this calm pool of water and for a minute there is nothing you need to do.
I remember one of those moments so clearly. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes and lifted my face toward the sky. I could feel the sun on my face and the breeze against my skin, and I just floated there. I remember thinking that it felt magical. At 30, of course, I had absolutely no idea what the next 18 years were going to look like. I didn’t know what would work out, what wouldn’t, who would come into my life, what would change, what I would lose, what I would build, or how many times I would completely change my mind about what I thought my life was supposed to look like.
That is the strange thing about life. We make plans based on a future we haven’t lived yet, and then life goes ahead and has its own ideas. Sometimes the route changes quietly, and sometimes it feels like someone grabbed the raft and threw the whole thing sideways. There are times when you feel completely in control and others when all you can really do is hold on, paddle when somebody tells you to paddle, and trust that eventually the water is going to calm down again.
This year has had some rapids. I don’t want to say it has been the hardest year of my life because I don’t think difficult years need to compete for a trophy, and I have certainly lived through A LOT of hard things before. But a lot of pieces of this year have been hard.
There have been things I thought would be easier that weren’t. Things I was sure about that suddenly felt less certain. I have questioned decisions, worried about money, wondered whether the things I am creating are going to work, and had moments where I felt completely confident followed almost immediately by moments where I wondered what in the actual hell I was doing.
There have also been really good things, because life is inconvenient like that. It refuses to let anything be completely one thing. A year can be hard and still have beautiful moments in it. You can be scared and hopeful at the same time. You can be exhausted by something you chose and still know why you chose it. You can be incredibly grateful for your life while also admitting that certain parts of it are kicking your ass.
I think I used to believe there would eventually be some stage of life where everything would settle down and become clear. I’m not sure I believe that anymore.
This month once I flipped the calendar to August, I keep looking at August 24 on my calendar, the birthday I normally look forward to, and instead of feeling that little-girl-in-the-aluminum-foil-crown excitement, I keep thinking, not yet.
I don’t know that I’m ready for it yet. And I’ve been trying to understand why, because it really isn’t about the number 48. Forty-eight itself doesn’t scare me.
I think maybe what scares me is turning the page when I don’t feel finished with this one.
I wanted a few more things to be settled by now. I wanted more stability. I wanted some answers. I wanted some of the things I have worked so hard on to have moved from “I really believe this is going to work” into “Look, it worked.” Maybe somewhere in my head I pictured arriving at another birthday with a little more certainty, a little more proof, a few more things checked off. I wanted to reach August 24 standing triumphantly on the shore, and instead I still feel like I’m somewhere in the middle of the river holding the paddle.
But then I keep thinking about that birthday when I turned 30. The peaceful part of that rafting trip wasn’t the end of the river. The rapids weren’t over. We weren’t finished. More rough water was coming. That quiet stretch was simply a place in the middle where everything slowed down long enough for me to stop paddling, lean back and feel the sun on my face.
Maybe birthdays are more like that.
Maybe they aren’t finish lines where we are supposed to arrive with everything figured out. Maybe I don’t have to show up on August 24 with proof that every risk was worth it, every decision was right, every problem has been solved and every loose end has been tied up in some pretty little bow. Maybe it can simply be a place in the middle of the river where I stop for a minute and look around.
Because when I really think about it, that is why I loved birthdays before I knew anything about timelines or accomplishments or where I was supposed to be by a certain age. That little girl wearing the cardboard crown wasn’t celebrating what she accomplished that year. She was just unbelievably happy that it was her birthday.
Maybe she understood birthdays better than I do now.
So, if you are coming up on a birthday, a milestone, or simply looking at your life and thinking you should be further along by now, maybe give yourself permission to stop paddling for a minute.
You don’t have to be finished to be grateful. You don’t have to have all the answers to look around and recognize how far you’ve already come.
48 is coming for me whether I feel ready or not. And I’m trying to stop looking at August 24 and thinking, Not yet.
Maybe instead I can look at it the way I did all those years ago.
I’m here.
Still paddling sometimes. Still getting tossed around occasionally. Still laughing. Still scared. Still making plans. Still changing them. Still building things. Still screwing things up. Still loving people. Still dreaming about what could happen next.
And every once in a while, finding one of those quiet stretches where I can lift my face toward the sky, feel the sun and remember how unbelievable it is that I get to be here for any of it.
Forty-eight years.
That seems worth cake.
Remember, YOU GOT THIS!
ONE ON ONE COACHING – Good Things Are Gonna Come
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