I got the best birthday gift this week

But the question is will I take advantage of it?

Spoiler alert: I LOVE birthdays. I celebrate all week.

But it’s never about gifts. In fact, I usually give more gifts than I receive…I have a personal tradition of finding a way to treat someone I love on my birthday week as my offering to this universe of gratitude for being here and being loved. Sometimes it’s dinner, a coffee date, an experience…

I digress but I have to tell you this year’s was one of my favorites! I found out one of our local restaurants was doing an “afternoon tea” for these two weeks and it just looked so fun. So I asked my sister in law and friend to go and surprised them by having the bill paid for. (I am telling you, this is the BEST part of my birthday week! Because they always think they should be treating me so it’s the most fun to give them a gift instead!) But check out this spread!

Ok back on track….(but seriously I am going to see if I can make this afternoon tea a yearly ritual, we lingered over pots of tea and delicious food and it was amazing!)

If you watched the replay of the workshop last week, you heard me vulnerably share I was in the middle of a medical scare. It finally got sorted out Friday (that’s why this writing is a day late!) and all is good…for now.

I say “For now” not to be foreboding or pessimistic but because it matters.

This week as I celebrated my birthday, I either was going to be celebrating given another chance (thankfully this was the case!) or heading down the scary road of cancer treatment.

And all week as the answer remained unclear, I was swimming in that limbo state of uncertainty. You know what I mean right? That If/then state of how many crossroads were possible this week.

And all the worry and contemplation of loss that went with that. (Oh, how the mind can spiral!)

So here I sit today, feeling like I got the best birthday gift EVER. And you might consider the gift is that I am ok. (Of course, that’s true)

But there’s more. Because all week I contemplated the opposite. Not because I wanted to think of the worst outcome, but because I wanted to practice in the moment how to navigate uncertainty.

Would I be okay?
Could I manage the fear?
Could I trust that I would be okay, even if all was not okay?

This was a gift. For real, this was the gift in the midst of this. To practice uncertainty because all of life is uncertain. I am okay now but that’s just for now.

So the other part of this gift is now what do I do with it? I am okay for now and you might think the gift is to appreciate life and that I am healthy for now. You aren’t wrong. But there’s more.

The bigger gift is to understand the fine balance of walking between the fleeting nature of life and the pure bliss it is to walk in it.

Can I appreciate this proverbial ‘second chance’ while I also understand that every day is a chance?

There’s a reason Cherry Blossom Season is so beloved. (One of my fav times of the year!) Yes, they are beautiful but moreover, they remind us that life and beauty are fleeting as these blooms that only come out for 2 weeks a year tell us.

But they also remind us to TRUST. Trust in nature, in this universe.

That no matter who long we are in recovery or resting state, we bloom again. And it was this trust in myself that kept me steady all week.

So today, I am contemplating the gift I have been given and I do not take it lightly. I, unlike many other women, will lead this upcoming week without pondering which treatment will be right for me and if it will work. This is a GIFT.

AND I also must trust in myself and this world that the uncertainty of what lies ahead for me and for all of us is something I can walk through.

So today, I am wishing all of you a weekend full of trust and JOY.

I myself will be celebrating my birthday still:) and one of my favorite holidays, Holi, today. We will be dancing and throwing color on each other and reminding ourselves that Spring is here. Not only for the world. But maybe for ourselves, to bloom into new versions of ourselves and how we trust those versions to carry us through.

Sending all of y’all love and I hope to see some more of you in our community in the workshops where we will dive even deeper into what it means to be human and thrive in this broken world. As always, you can leave a comment to share with the community!