34

Today I am 34.  This has been my most difficult birthday, not because I'm getting older but because of recent changes that had to happen so the people involved can find out what they need and who they are.  But, while they are necessary changes, they have also been incredibly painful.


Someone asked recently whether I have regrets and if I would change anything.  Despite the agony of the last few months--and the particular hell of the last few days--I wouldn't.  The idea of regret has always suggested, to me, that the person who has them doesn't want to be exactly who she is.  So, if changing something from my past changes who I am today, I'll pass.


I am not perfect, no one is, but I usually like myself.  I have doubts like everyone else, but I know who I am because of what I have been through, and I am proud of that.   This picture was taken today before friends took me out to dinner and the woman in it knows who she is.  I wouldn't trade that for anything.


It would be easier to live head down, mouth shut, pretending everything is okay.  But I can't do that.  I believe in telling the truth, even when it means letting people I love go, hoping they find happiness, even if that happiness may have nothing to do with me.  


T.S. Eliot wrote "What we call the beginning is often the end.  And to make an end is to make a beginning.  The end is where we start from."


My prayer for this year is that I am strong enough to believe more in the beginning than the end.