on turning another year older

Birthdays used to feel like markers.
Proof of progress.
A chance to measure who I had become against who I thought I was supposed to be.

This one feels different.

This birthday arrives without urgency. Without the need to declare anything finished or fixed. It arrives quietly, asking only that I pause long enough to notice where I am standing now.

I am older.
I am softer.
I am clearer.

Not because life has been gentle but because it hasn’t been.

Over the past few years, I have learned that becoming is not a straight line. It is layered. Repetitive. Often circular. We revisit the same questions with different eyes, different bodies, different thresholds for truth.

I have learned that strength does not always announce itself. Sometimes it looks like staying. Sometimes it looks like leaving. Sometimes it looks like resting long enough to hear your own voice again.

I have learned that grief does not come to dismantle us, even when it feels like it might. It comes to rearrange what matters. It clarifies what we carry forward, and what we are finally ready to set down.

I have learned that love, real love does not ask for disappearance. It does not require performance. It asks for presence. For honesty. For the courage to be seen without armor.

This year, more than any other, reminded me that identity is not a fixed thing. It is a living practice. One shaped by attention. By choice. By the willingness to remain open, even when openness feels tender.

I no longer measure my life by milestones alone. I measure it by alignment. By how often I choose depth over speed. By how gently I treat myself when the answers are not yet clear.

On this birthday, I am not wishing for reinvention.
I am wishing for continued listening.
For the grace to stay curious.
For the discipline to choose what feels true, even when it is inconvenient.

If there is anything this year has taught me, it is this:
There is no finish line.
Only a deeper presence.

And that, I am learning, is more than enough.