Photo Friday :: All the Days of Your Life

If you haven’t caught on yet, I’m hopelessly nostalgic. It’s my trigger for mindfulness: finding the sweet spot of life, realizing how precious it is and using that emotion to wake up to the immense power of living life fully awake.

I looked through many, many birthday quotes for this picture. My life is so full of birthday right now I might sneeze out a streamer. I realize that most of my birthday blogging has focused on Koala, but reflecting I see it perfectly balances out how skewed the birthday energy can be towards Solshine. He’s five after all. He knows what a birthday is and the build up is fun. He talks about birthdays, checks the mail every day for cards and falls asleep dreaming about what might be inside mystery packages.

Koala on the other hand treats everyday like it’s his birthday. Bring him out a cake with candles and he’s tickled pink because he never saw it coming.

* * * * * * * * *

Back to the quotes. It was hard finding one I liked because, well, now I know that most birthday quotes suck. They are all about aging people lamenting growing old. Huh? Sure it can be funny to have a laugh here and there, but when stacked up, it becomes apparent that we are a society afraid of aging and keep ourselves busy lamenting our lost youths. Unfortunately, it’s possible, that in the process of feeling bad about getting old, we might just be giving up, what has the possibility of being the best day of our lives.

That’s why I liked this birthday quote.

May you live all the days of your life.
~Jonathan Swift

To think life is over when we are still alive might be the saddest story I’ve ever heard. To celebrate our ripening of being; to embrace the wisdom that comes with experience; to look back with nostalgia, rather than contempt; to age gracefully–well, that feels hopeful.

While I support a woman to live out her own truths and her own choices I am particularly inspired by the women I see embracing their journey. I am inspired when I see a woman who dares to let her hair show it’s true colors and who lives like today just might be the best day of her life. I am inspired when I meet people who are far beyond my years and are still learning new things, taking up hobbies and dreaming new dreams.

There is everything good about being young and the exuberance and possibility that lives there,

AND

There is everything good about being old and holding the wisdom of a life well lived.

There is no either or; best or worse. There is just life, and days and moments.

So I offer this birthday toast to you, regardless of what ripe and beautiful age you might be:

May you age gracefully, with beauty and wisdom and may you live, truly live, all the days of your life.

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Tagged as: aging, birthday, photo friday, quotes