birthday thoughts

john and i hosted a 30th birthday celebration for our friend kelly yesterday. like me, kelly has a large group of friends she’s known and loved since the days of junior high, highschool, and college. they are a fun group of peeps, intimate & connected with one another in the ways that beloved friends are. they have a long history, a common thread of experiences, joys, and heartbreaks that bond them to one another like family. i am blessed to have this in my own life, but it’s lovely to witness in their unique circle of friendships. they are new friends to me here in this city, but they are welcoming and inclusive in ways that make me feel i’ve been a part of this for awhile.
kelly and her husband erik were our first friends here, introduced to us by one of my friends in brooklyn. they are hilarious (especially erik, oh my), and kelly has a bit of endearing absentmindedness that reminds me of myself sometimes. it’s quite funny, actually. one time, we were waiting to be seated for brunch, and she asked me “who’s name did you put our table under, mine or yours?” as she look at me completely perplexed and puzzled, i said, “well, honey, hmmm, we have the same name, don’t we?” clearly, she hadn’t had her coffee yet. we laughed and laughed about it. there are several of these moment between us where one of us is a total flake for a moment. i’m collecting them. they make me laugh. we don’t always have to be “on”, do we?

as you can see in the pics, the eye is much, much improved. i really only had some discoloration for a day or two, and now the cut is healing fast, too. not too bad.

i love birthdays, celebrations of life, for all we have become and are becoming. it’s the process and the progress that are the really exciting stuff for me. as we were discussing last nite, i don’t ever want to arrive, or be done. i like the taking of steps toward myself, always changing, evolving, learning. kelly asked me last nite if the mind chatter stops in your thirties. well, for me it hasn’t but i’m way more relaxed about it now. it doesn’t paralyze me in the way it used to. it’s true what they say about being in your thirties. you loosen up. you’re more comfortable in your skin. you’re bolder. still learning, of course, but there seems to be less analysis of yourself, and more of just being yourself.