I have made the bold statement numerous times that every year of my life has been better than the last. It’s easy for an active, healthy, rich (according to world standards) and deeply loved woman to speak so blithely.
And then yesterday, I turned 31. This year’s birthday, falling humbly on a Monday and overshadowed by the tornado of bliss [aside, has anyone else noticed my perpetual use of this particular word?] that was my recent nuptials, provoked a moment of sober reflection. My 30th year was so bounteously saturated with blessings and joyous, epochal events that how am I to top it? In no particular order I fell in love; got engaged; got married; watched my sister cross the portable, sunlit stage as the proud new recipient of a Harvard MBA; drank a Boston lager and ate sweet potato fries with my Dad on his 60th birthday; danced a Floridian jive with my grandfather on his 80th birthday; house-warmed my punk-rocking cousin’s new fixer-upper chateau; toasted my parents in their 35th year of matrimony; earned another six figures with the sweat of my intellect; gave my aspiring-actor cousin a standing whoot following his jaw-dropping stage performance as the lead in Ionesco’s Rhinoceros; high-fived my little-miss-athlete cousin after her team won the Ontario soccer championships; dove, swam, sunbathed and hiked through a paradise half way around the world; spoke French with Parisians in Paris; met the most famous man in rugby in box seats at the World Cup; ran a half-marathon; celebrated Canada Day in Canada’s capital; and started my sparsely-visited [for now] but motivational Stream of Jessica...
With a renewed urgency to make my 31st year of life equally as immaculate, I have hit the gym daily and pondered my course of action. I am the only one in control of the ante. Do I increase my mileage from 13 to 26? Do I learn a new language? Do I pursue an extracurricular degree? Do I outline the fiction novel I so abstractly claim I want to write? Or maybe, do I follow the lead of the tortoise rather than the hare and allow 30 it’s appropriate reign supreme?
All thoughts I let slide into syncopic slumber yesterday night during a romantic, crystal candlelit, pomegranate-themed, White Star infused, home-cooked birthday dinner. There are worse things than plateau-ing at the height of euphoria…
And then yesterday, I turned 31. This year’s birthday, falling humbly on a Monday and overshadowed by the tornado of bliss [aside, has anyone else noticed my perpetual use of this particular word?] that was my recent nuptials, provoked a moment of sober reflection. My 30th year was so bounteously saturated with blessings and joyous, epochal events that how am I to top it? In no particular order I fell in love; got engaged; got married; watched my sister cross the portable, sunlit stage as the proud new recipient of a Harvard MBA; drank a Boston lager and ate sweet potato fries with my Dad on his 60th birthday; danced a Floridian jive with my grandfather on his 80th birthday; house-warmed my punk-rocking cousin’s new fixer-upper chateau; toasted my parents in their 35th year of matrimony; earned another six figures with the sweat of my intellect; gave my aspiring-actor cousin a standing whoot following his jaw-dropping stage performance as the lead in Ionesco’s Rhinoceros; high-fived my little-miss-athlete cousin after her team won the Ontario soccer championships; dove, swam, sunbathed and hiked through a paradise half way around the world; spoke French with Parisians in Paris; met the most famous man in rugby in box seats at the World Cup; ran a half-marathon; celebrated Canada Day in Canada’s capital; and started my sparsely-visited [for now] but motivational Stream of Jessica...
With a renewed urgency to make my 31st year of life equally as immaculate, I have hit the gym daily and pondered my course of action. I am the only one in control of the ante. Do I increase my mileage from 13 to 26? Do I learn a new language? Do I pursue an extracurricular degree? Do I outline the fiction novel I so abstractly claim I want to write? Or maybe, do I follow the lead of the tortoise rather than the hare and allow 30 it’s appropriate reign supreme?
All thoughts I let slide into syncopic slumber yesterday night during a romantic, crystal candlelit, pomegranate-themed, White Star infused, home-cooked birthday dinner. There are worse things than plateau-ing at the height of euphoria…
5 comments:
loves it. you are 31 flavours and then some...
Sounds great & Happy Birthday too. Thanks for the updates. Keep us posted on where sis lands too. Cheers & Good Luck, 'VJ'
This post was so gorgeous. Congratulations on everything. :)
I vote for the part that says "Do I increase my mileage from 13 to 26?" and endorse that thought 100%.
I know an easy and familiar race that WE can finish all 42km.
see you on the course.
Sounds like year 30 is going to be a tough act to follow. I think only a baby or two could eclipse that long list of things that most people couldn't claim for a lifetime!
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