Shiny Gifts

Well, it's my freakin' birthday (*grumble, grumble*....back in MY day, we didn't HAVE these newfangled contraptions like blogs and Facebook!! Hey, you kids! Getoffamylawn*!). I am 28 years old. This is the first birthday where things like "biological clock" and "marriage" and "white picket fence" have jumped ferociously to mind and become active parts of my lexicon. Sheesh. I spent a good 30 minutes examining my face last night. Four new wrinkles on either side of my mouth. Half a dozen new age spots. Some baby wrinkles forming between my eyebrows. Yikes. My face has aged considerably since my last birthday (in spite of never leaving the house without SPF nine million slathered everywhere and, you know, reapplying throughout the day), and the only way my life could have changed more in the year between birthdays is if I had spontaneously changed my sex or grown a second head.

28, I embrace you with open arms. You are, as Peter tells me, a mathematically perfect number.

I'm going to use the rest of this post to type up something that I had written in my pen-and-paper journal. I'm not sharing this because I necessarily want to turn this blog into a super intimate play-by-play of my internal journeys. I, in fact, have no interest in doing that (well, within reason....I mean, I have had no trouble being a pretty open book thus far, but there are quite a few things that I like to keep private. That's where the pen-and-paper journal comes in!!). The reason why I DO want to share some very personal things is that I think a lot of the growth that I have experienced recently (and by recently, I mean that I think the chain of events was put in motion awhile ago, but I am only now able to fully appreciate and experience it) is directly related to the fact that I am living overseas and making travel a priority. Lately I've been drawn to stories about women who are living in the perfect house with the perfect husband and leading what appears to be a perfect life. And then the bottom drops out. As the heroine's life slumps on the floor around her like so many discarded silk dresses, she decides to pick herself up and start TRAVELING. And it is through traveling that she finds herself and discovers all of the joy that life has to offer. Well, I'm very lucky that I get to do that NOW. While my life had had a portion of its bottom drop out before I moved overseas (and, yes, it was a bit of a catalyst for my decision-making process to move halfway around the globe), I don't have to wait until my husband leaves me for a younger woman to forge a path in this world and discover myself. I can do it in reverse: travel first and live a cozy family life second. Minus, you know, all of the divorce stuff. Stories like Eat, Pray, Love (omg....LOVES!!!), Under the Tuscan Sun, and even Thelma and Louise show what travel can do for a woman's soul. I just wanted to share a little of what it has done for mine.

So this is the cheesiest statement ever, but what the hell: last night, along with counting my wrinkles and age spots, I also counted my blessings.

Commence vomiting.

Oh, and this is completely unedited, so please forgive any grammatical errors or less-than-dazzling word choices.

Journal entry written on 2/26/08
As my last journal documents, I've had many ups and downs since I've been here. Job frustrations, frustration with being so far away from people I love, frustration with finding my own inner peace. My path. My heart's desire. It has not been an easy road, to say the least, but I'm glad that I'm starting a new journal as things have shifted in a powerful, beautiful, new direction. Fresh new pages for a fresh new phase of my journey. I don't know how it happened or when it happened. Perhaps it's a ball that's been rolling for awhile and just needed to dislodge itself from the navy blue muck of stuckness and questioning and doubt. And transitions are tough. Moving halfway around the world is TOUGH and NOT for the faint of heart, and I really don't think I could have anticipated how hard it would actually be. But recently the two ton elephant that has been sitting on my chest for the last few months and siphoning the positivity out of me to wet his parched throat has stretched his legs, shaken off the sedentary dust that had settled in the creases of his skin, and wandered off in search of his own personal Serengeti. My lungs are re-inflating and my ribs are popping back into place like one of those foam stress toys that slowly returns to its original form--if a bit wrinkled--after being smushed and squeezed and flattened.

I am the recipient of many gifts.

And while many of these gifts had quite possibly been laid at my feet for quite some time, I chose to trip on them, fall down beside them, and skin my knee on them as the (albeit pink and sparkly) fishbowl over my head distorted my vision and made my shoulders stoop under its weight. But now my lungs can accept the air that fills them. My eyes are adapting to details and smaller, more subtle shades.

I am receiving many gifts.

*Thanks to Nina for that!