30!

Today I turn 30! What a gift. As I look back on my 20s, I feel so thankful for all the amazing things that happened. I graduated (twice!) from UNC, met some of my best friends, fell in love and got married, started my career as a medical SLP, became a foster parent, moved to a city I have always wanted to live in, and bought a home. Wow wow wow.

Often my default is to focus on what I don’t have yet, or where I am in life compared to other people my age, but what a waste of time. God has given me TODAY, this moment, and I want to enjoy it.

Birthday breakfast at Camino

This morning I came across a gorgeous poem by Mary Oliver, Wild Geese, and it just spoke to my soul! When I first read these words they felt a little moody to me, but upon multiple readings they have filled me with comfort. No matter where we live or who we are or what we have been through, we all have a place “in the family of things.” I hope you enjoy this poem as much as I do:

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.”