Birthday's Past Leads To Birthday's Present

(21st Birthday Tea Party '07)

(My first legal drink at Madden's in downtown Bryan)

(22nd birthday at the wine festival in Grapevine)


(Me and the girls in Uptown for my 22nd)


(Outside our hotel in downtown Dallas)

It's almost here.

Just around the corner.

I will be another year older and hopefully a little wiser.

In birthday's past I've felt nothing but excitement.

Always thrilled for it to be my day/week. Yep, week. I celebrate the great day that I was brought into this world for an entire week. Ha! I know I'm ridiculous.

I promise I only have princess tendencies when it comes to my birthday.

Here's an actual phone conversation with my Daddy on his birthday....

Me: "Happy Birthday Daddy!!!! Are you excited that it's your day?!?!"

Daddy: "Just another day sweetheart, just working."

Me: "So no one brought you a birthday cake or sang you the birthday song or told you to go home since it was your birthday??? You have to demand more from your birthday!"

Daddy: "That doesn't happen when you grow up. "

Me: "Yes it does, you have to make it happen. Be like me, I'm a princess on my birthday."

Daddy: (massive chuckling)

I'm not sure if he laughed because I do act like a princess on my birthday or if he thinks he has raised an absolutely ridiculous daughter, probably both.

The point is I will always expect a lot from my birthday.

As the years start to pass though I begin to feel a small weight.

I'm not concerned with getting old/older yet. I'm aware that 23 isn't exactly old and I don't want to act like it is. (Although, my knees are poppin' a lot more than they used to these days.)

The weight is more about each year and what I have done in that year.

What do I have to show for my 22nd year?

So I thought about it and this past year has been wonderful in so many ways.

Just thinking about the growth that I have made makes me smile.

Just thinking about the wonderful friends I've made in this past year makes my heart happy.

Just thinking about my family and their endless love and support over the last year makes me want to cry, in a good way.

You see, about a year and a half ago I was confused. I was positive I knew who I was and what I wanted.

But I didn't.

I knew what someone else wanted me to be.

I knew what someone else wanted and I was convinced I wanted that too.

I've always been a strong willed person and let my thoughts be known but at this point in my life it was like that person inside of me had died.

I did nothing but put someone else and their problems in front of my own.

What an awful way to live, always putting yourself last.

After a life changing experience I began to see my worth.

My lack of worth to someone.

Hurt and anger filled my heart. But I couldn't be angry at anyone but myself.

I allowed myself to let such worthlessness in my life and stay.

So I picked myself up.

I started fresh.

And I decided that the most important person in the world to know is yourself.

I decided that I don't want the inside of me to be such a mess.

I decided I never wanted to bring someone else into that again.

So for over a year now I've spent time on me.

Working on my relationship with me.

And for the first time I feel clarity.

So I like to think that this last year has been one of the greatest years of my life.

I'm also hoping that 23 lives up to the last year and that I learn just as much as I was lucky enough to learn this past year.

Afterall, I believe that's what's so great about life, you can learn something new everyday.