Note To Self: On Your Birthday Eve

Dear Self: 

Do you remember your tenth birthday? It was cool yet sunny and your aunt showed up totally sloshed, shoving rolls of quarters attached to mylar balloons into your hand before she exclaimed in her slurred speech that you were growing up so fast. It wasn't until she went into the house that it hit you, the sadness, in inevitability of time. Never again would you be a single digit. There would always be a number in the tens place. I think this fed into those years of agonizing over leaving for college yet we both know how quickly you packed your bags when the time came. 

I feel like 29 has the possibility of being that kind of year, filled with grief over the steady passage of time. This 28-year-old is worried, quite honestly, that 29 will be hard. There will be lots of writing, more hard work to be done than hours in the day, and the potential to uproot everything and begin somewhere else. Again. 

It will be okay. Remember that you always seem to work your way through the chaos and emerge standing, albeit slightly bruised sometimes. Be risky. You play it too safe - you know this. Just not too risky. (See how hard this is!) Be kind to yourself. You always instruct others to do so yet rarely follow the advice yourself. Guard yourself against cynicism. I can feel it creeping in. Battle against it. That's not who you are, it will not be who you become. Don't borrow trouble. You cause enough on your own. Love, you jackass. It's not as though you have a finite amount of the stuff. 

May 29 be a good year. 

Be Well, 

You