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As I sit here today on my thirty-third birthday, I've got a lot to ponder, a lot for which to be thankful. I wish I could show you every image racing through my mind of things I've experienced, people I've loved and admired, heartbreak I've endured, and every song my heart has sung, but Apple hasn't released that type of technology yet.

So many people grieve turning thirty, as if the best years of their lives have already passed them by. I feel as though life began for me, in some ways, once I got to my thirties. I may not have the neck-high perky boobs of a college tart, but mine are still hanging in there. They have given life to two children, have comforted broken hearts in an embrace, and even made a couple of trips to Hawai'i. I am healthier and stronger than ever before in my life, and I feel as though I am navigating the proving grounds of physical health that will pay off in future decades. I have learned things about myself, about others, about our world, about God, that I could have never comprehended with any clarity in the days of my "youth".

By the time I turned thirty, I was a widow and mother of two children ages 2 1/2 and 9 months. In my thirties, I have learned that being a single parent really isn't the end of the world. Being tired and frustrated with life isn't an excuse to be a jerk to your kids. If you are going to survive, you adapt. Kind of a modern twist on natural selection, and quite frankly, I'm not ready to raise my white flag. I was able to reflect on the ways in which my marriage could have been much better and what things I was so fortunate to have found in T. I listened to so many of my married friends talk about their spouses, sometimes to their spouses, and discuss marriage in general. Sometimes I would cringe and wonder if I had spoken that way to or about T., which I know I had, and I could only wish that I could tell him how sorry I was, if I only had the chance to apologize face to face. I realized how quickly married couples can overlook what they mean to each other and to their children. It has made me determined that, when R. and I tie the knot, I will remember what I have learned so that I can be a better wife to him.

I've been privileged to meet so many beautiful, wonderful people who have touched my life or inspired me in ways I didn't realize until much later. Some of these people have gone on to be friends, some have wandered off in their own direction, and I don't love one less than another. My friends are truly part of my family, and if God is taking requests the day I get to heaven, I hope God will put us all around a wonderful meal or a campfire in the mountains so I can be with all of the people I love all at once.

Travel has impacted my life in such a meaningful way, too. I told R. recently that, although I don't want to be cremated when I die, if I was cremated, my ashes couldn't just be spread in one place. I would want a little piece of me to be taken to dozens of different places that I have loved. My grandparents' farm, the cemetery where T. and all my family is buried, Mount Rainier, Waimea Bay, the beach where I've gone with my parents, Washington, D.C., the pyramids in Egypt, Rome, Kusadasi, Istanbul, Rhodes, Fort Benning, and so many other places -- I have carried something beautiful from them in my heart that I simply can't describe.

I remember my birthday four years ago: a cold, crisp autumn day in Louisiana on the back of the motorcycle with T. I had specifically asked to ride to a battalion function on the bike because he was going to deploy the following spring and wouldn't be there to take me out on my thirtieth birthday on the bike. Little did I know that almost exactly a month later he would be gone. I remember being behind him on the bike and looking at the sky, thinking that if I died that day, I would have been the happiest person in the world because my life had never been happier than it was on that day. I had a great husband and two beautiful children, my health, friends and family. As I looked up at a blazing sunny sky yesterday, it was cold and crisp and I mused at how I felt the same way then as I had four years ago, and I couldn't help but offer up quiet praise to God. I know my birthday was a good one last year, but I swear they keep getting better and better.

I don't know how to make a slideshows on YouTube, but this song says pretty close to how I feel today. I hope your next birthday brings you the peace which passes all understanding as this one has brought me today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7P8pPYSXhk