Writing a post about my birthday doesn’t hold the appeal that a post about my growing children. Cute photos and paragraphs about their new antics flow easily. This year is different somehow, maybe it is because I am closing in on 40. (Our secret, okay?!)
As my birthday came and went I have been contemplative. It seems half-way-ish, you know? I can’t hep but realize that life isn’t where I thought it would be. Now, that could be taken as a negative statement, but actually I am finding peace in the fact that my plans are not Gd’s plans. (I know, I know, a lesson that I am not Gd could have been mastered earlier in my life!)
Put my birthday together with a move back to Asia and you get a mish-mash of thoughts by an older Tammy who suddenly has realized that I am right where I want to be. Never pictured myself as a homeschooling mother of four and I wouldn’t have thought I would be living in a city of a million people…again. Yet here I am.
Loving it.
With all the imperfections that come along with it.
When I turned 28 I went out and chopped off all my hair. I mean really cut it off. I came home and shocked my sweet husband who swore he liked it. Still not sure about that. I kept thinking that I was almost 30 and I wanted to be and do something radical. Everyone told me that I looked like my mom with short hair. Not really what I was going for.
It has been ten more years. Not sure that I am really living some radical life and I guess I wouldn’t say that I have found the perfect job, location, or mission. But I am living my dream at thrity-achem (That was my attempt to spell a throat clear in case you didn’t catch that.) even if that dream doesn’t look like what I imagined as a college student or as a twenty something.
I am learning that no age, no situation is perfect, but Gd is in control. I can embrace that and make it my passion or pine for something else. Getting old enough to realize that if I don’t embrace what He is giving me then I am going to miss out on everything.
Celebrating another year by eating a crazy fancy Chinese birthday cake with fake peach filling. Excited that I am living out my dream in the center of Gd’s will for me…one day at a time.
Casting A Stone 
Hey, sorry I missed your birthday! Sounds like you’re getting more contemplative in your”old” age! 😊. I pry that your new year is full of blessing! Love you!
Happy Birthday from Mark ‘s house. He just turned 41 on Sat. and we were here. Two teens and two babies here and all girls.
Tammy, I’m right there with you…in age and in learning to love the life Gd is giving me with all its imperfections and so many unexpected roles to play.