Birthday Musings

For me, my birthday is the start of a new year. I don't start "resolutions" in January. I muse over life in December on my birthday, thinking about what has transpired in the past year of my life and what I'd like to do in the upcoming year.

Past Birthday Posts:
*24 Year Birthday
*25 Year Birthday
*27 Year Birthday
*28 Year Birthday

This birthday, well really the age I turned, was a hard one for me. On December 14th, I turned 29. 29! Really? As I went to write this, I honestly was going to write 25. I can't keep track of my age anymore. Age isn't really about a number, but a feeling. My Oma is 91, but she still FEELS (maybe not physically) like she's in her 20's. I think that's what life is about. It goes by so quickly. Each year, all 365 days of it, add up and before you know it, you're 91 looking back at all of those years and people and the life that you've lived.

Some thoughts I've been having recently have involved not necessarily this year, but birthdays past. I have been thinking a lot about what my life used to be like and how I've changed in the past 10.5 years since high school graduation. I've been talking with Evan about the things I've given up over the years. Pursuits that once meant a lot to me that I no longer do. Here are a few I've come up with:

1. singing
2. playing piano
3. acting
4. photography
5. writing

These are all things that meant a lot to me for years. I don't know how, but, one by one, they slowly faded away during my college years as I became more involved in college life and new hobbies. Photography and writing stuck with me the longest. Being an English major, I took at least 25 different English classes. I wrote a lot for those classes. It wasn't, however, in an English class that I learned how to truly write: To write my thoughts, my ideas, to write about people and life. It was in an Interpersonal Communications class back in January of 2002.

It all started as an assignment for that class. On the first day of the semester, the teacher gave us one element of our semester-long project: We had to type up at least half a page of our thoughts everyday for the duration of the semester (4 months) and turn it in with a portfolio. Usually I am a PROCRASTINATOR when it comes to big projects. I always get them done, but usually the night before.

However, something in me changed that day. I started writing again. Writing for me. First, because I had to, but then because I wanted to. I surprised myself by not only completing the task assigned, but going beyond it to type up several HUNDRED pages of 10-point font and .5" margins all around. It was a lot.

And I didn't stop writing at the end of the semester. I kept it up for years, literally typing (and handwriting) thousands of pages almost daily. I miss those days. I wish I wrote more.

So, why don't I? Why have I let life get in the way of what I enjoy doing? I guess it gets busy graduating college, getting a grown-up job, dating someone seriously, moving, getting married, being involved in church, finding new hobbies (sewing!). It all takes up time. And sometimes it's more important to do things for and with others than for ourselves.

But, I've decided that in the next year of my life that I'll write more. I'll spend more time doing a little more of what I want to do because I know that I'll be a better, happier person in the end. What is it that you don't do anymore? Why did you stop?

(Here is probably the only semi-normal birthday picture my family took at my grandma's:)

Birthday Cookie from my ward: