Birthday Thoughts...

*this post is part of Steady Moms 30 Minute Blog Challenge.

Happy Birthday to me... 38 years old. I'm trying to decide if I feel old or not. It's been a hard year and this is the first birthday I have ever had without my Dad...which feels really odd and sad. I was born at home with my Dad as babycatcher. I wonder how he felt at that moment? 20 years old and ready to change the world. It never occurred to me to ask him that particular question and I wish I had. It wasn't something I was thinking about till last night when I had the sudden realization that I couldn't call my Dad up to tell him I was calling so he could wish his favorite daughter "Happy Birthday!" (There are a lot of daughters in this family and we all claimed to be the favorite. The answer, regardless of which one of us was asking, was always..."Yes, you are." He had an awesome, rather dry, sense of humor.) Dad could bake a mean chocolate birthday cake...and I miss him.

Last year, for my birthday, I was in Agra, India visiting the Taj Mahal. It was a topper as far as birthdays go, though I do recall a cockroach in the ice bucket, but by then, we were on a first name basis with *those* creatures. The day after my birthday found us on the roof of a local Agra restaurant called "Stuffmakers," drinking Kingfisher and watching the sun set perfectly over the Taj. January 26th is also Indian Republic Day, which I never knew till we lived there. With an Indian name and an Indian birthday, surely I might consider myself to have at least a little Indian soul?

So, 38, missing my Dad, missing another continent. I'm mom with two terrific kids and a husband who is my best friend (even though I'm amazingly, right, all of the time! Really! At least, I'm sure he'd say so!) A dog who loves me even when I act like a lunatic (oh. the kids and husband, do that too.) I am older (though I really don't feel old). Today, I was so happy to be woken up to a lit birthday cake (I'm told, my mom helped the kids bake it last Sunday) and a cappucino. We had cake and ice cream at 7:30 am. It's not the Taj Mahal, but it is my heart. I may not be wiser, but I do know that I love how different my life looks than I ever imagined. I really love it. That we have all these dreams and plans and that many of them *do* come true...we birth them into being, both figuratively and literally, and yet they are never exactly how we imagined them to be, and if we allow it, allow ourselves to surrender a bit to the mutability of the universe, to the "wrinkle in time" that keeps us always changeable, they turn out to be even more powerful. Not always perfectly wonderful or perfectly happy, but, a better reflection of who we are continually becoming.

So, we don't go for perfect around here. My birthday wish today, is for you (whoever you are) to try and live with Intention, letting your actions flow from that. Hug your partner or/and your kids. Forgive someone, somewhere. And don't stop dreaming your life just because your 38...or 108.

Happy Birthday to Me.
Chandra Fischer
38-year-old mom in Minnesota