Three dozen

It's after midnight and I have entered the last half of my 30s.

I'm always a bit contemplative at anniversaries of any sort. I find value in pondering the past, seeing where I have come from. And I have, but just briefly. The last year was, by most accounts, among the darkest in recent memory. I know where I was this time last year. It warrants just a glance. An acknowledgment, and little else, of how much of the present I missed then.

My teenage son woke me up this morning with "Mom, can I have $5? Oh, and happy birthday." I slipped him the cash, laughed and dozed off. My colleagues brought cake and coffee. My phone and chat window and e-mail chirped with greetings throughout the day, short, but noticed, reminders of the richness of my life.

After work, I joined some friends for dinner at a local restaurant. I looked around the table. My youngest daughter and my friend's daughter were giggling at the far end. My teenage son and daughter sat across from them, looking genuinely happy and amused at their antics. At my right was a man I adore and across the table was a woman who took time she could scarcely afford to spend a few hours with us. My dear friend, and architect of the evening, and her husband rounded out the group. And as they sang and I blushed, I wondered if any of them knew how happy I felt just to have them all there.

I arrived home to a message from my father, wishing me a happy birthday. My children scurried to their bedrooms to gather the gifts they had wrapped two days prior, the ones they bought when my parents drove 220 miles round trip to take them shopping for me. My son rummaged for candles, his voice, childlike with a man's tenor, directing me to sit down at the dining room table. They sang as they marched out carrying presents and cake, their faces bright. A flurry of paper and singing cards and "open this one next, Mom" followed, the little one wiggling with excitement and the teenagers simply themselves; cool doesn't matter.

At times in my life I have expended great amounts of energy chasing some distant happiness. And while goals are important, I hope that I can remember the value of looking, not ahead, but around. So much of what I need, I already have.

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