This Season.

I turned 36 yesterday.  

Chris was out of town, Georgia and I went to the library and to the apple orchard for lunch, and I felt restless.  Just a little cranky and uncomfortable. 

Not because it was my birthday.  I could honestly care less about birthdays.  I've never been a big birthday party girl.  In fact my best birthday party happened by accident when my seventeenth fell on Homecoming Dance night my senior year of high school and the DJ had the crowd sing happy birthday to me.  

That's been tiding me over for years.  

No, I think that itchy-in-my-own skin feeling just comes from the season of life that I'm in now....thirty sixth birthday or not.  I wonder........and I debate.........and I weigh the pros and cons..........of so many things.  The size of our family, if I'm involved in enough 'stuff' to feel like I'm making meaningful contributions to my own family and those around me, if I'm a patient enough mom, if I should do more to grow my career or rest where I'm at for a bit, if I worry too much about things I can't control, if, if, if.  And also really important things like, 'why can't I find some wall paper I like for the 1/2 bath?'

And after I spend a day feeling irritable about these things and why I can't conjure up some solid answers to them I give myself a little 'get over yourself' speech and think about the things I have that couldn't be any more solid.  

Like this girl. 

And cousins and great-grandparents. 

And four year olds who are best best friends and even though they spend almost everyday of their lives together always need one more hug from each other before leaving.  

Rainy afternoons and puffy paint. 

Lazy Wednesday mornings. 

And about a million more things that I thought about during my break from this place over the last month.  

There are always going to be seasons that feel too full of the unknown, too fluid, and too unsettling--but in the midst of all of that you can always find some roots.  Cultivate those.  And the more that you do, the more they'll become the things that matter the most anyway.  

Good to be back here.  

Happy 36th birthday to me.  

And just for fun...........

Me.  30 years ago.  That's right--I had no hair--it just wouldn't grow....my mom tried everything.  Awesome.