The Tortuous Beauty of a Life Well Lived

This is my last day as a 38 year old and although I don’t want to skip ahead and I certainly don’t want to wish time away, I can’t get the rapidly looming number 40 out of my head. While my 40th birthday is over a year away, the start of my 40th rotation around the sun starts tomorrow and I want to make it count.

I love birthdays, I love presents, I love friends, celebration, ritual, I like to feel loved and be able to show others they are loved and I like a pause. A time to reflect. If you do them well, honestly, what’s not to love about birthdays.

So whilst mainly excited like a 7 year old in anticipation of many treats I am mindful that I have been around for a while, not an amazing amount of time but long enough that it should count.

I cannot take credit for the title of this, it came from the wonderful Commune podcast when Jeff Krasno and his incredible wife Schuyler Grant deliver such articulate wisdom it is a true treat for me to listen to. This phrase struck me as so beautiful I thought he must have taken it from somewhere but I can’t find any other solid reference.

It sums up, to me, the very essence of a life well lived. I have known torture, I have seen things and experienced things I wish I hadn’t and I have a particular strain of anxiety which, if left unchecked means I visualise my very worst nightmares with the clarity of a dream. I have experienced extreme beauty, I have been privileged enough to give life and continue to try and alchemise life every day in every way from the literal, growing plants to the philosophical, turning a normal day into a cherished memory.

So as I sit in the boiling sun (thank all that is good for this beautiful summer) and reflect on the end of my thirty eight years I am grateful for it all. I would not seek out the beauty so much if I had not sat in the sorrow. I would not be so grateful for silence if I had not had to scream. From the outside my life is very mundane but to me it is beautiful, I am grateful for every day, the tortuous beauty of a life well lived.