43

43.  Fourty Three.  It's really something.  I can review my life in so many ways...I can place value on it based on money, status, kids but in the end, I really am just happy.  I've blogged before about arrival and it really is a place I enjoy.  Arrival means I no longer care about things that don't matter.  Vanity?  You mean for a girl with only one breast and no hair for most of last year?  You mean hips and stretch marks  - permanent trophies of childbirth?  A bit of failing vision?  Slightly deaf?  A creak here and there when I get up too fast?  But with all of that, I see clearer than I ever have, hear joy and block out toxic sound and getting up fast means I am chasing someone...likely my little boy, and I am fine with the creaks.

So while my body may not be that of a 20 year old, my mind and soul are that of a sage.  The girlfriends I have in my life are truer and more dear to me than I have ever had.  My home, when full of people is full of warmth and when I crawl into bed at night and insomnia gets me, I crawl into bed with my children because I know watching them sleep will be something I won't be able to do much longer...

Olivia said to me I am the best mommy in all the trees and Jack said I was his best girl...Maddie reminds me every day while I should be proud and Ava bases all of her decisions from a moral angle...at 23 my life was just starting and now, 20 years later, it's cooking at full heat.  While my body isn't factory new any longer, I wouldn't have it any other way.  Well to be honest, I would have it exactly the way it is but with folded laundry.

Happy birthday to me.