Looking for a lesson...

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="675" caption="Do you know how hard it is to find a good REAL bday cake pic on Flickr?? iCan't."][/caption]

So, I'm 40 today.  I usually have plans on my birthday, but I didn't make any this year, so I slept in, am going to make my rounds at stores and restaurants that give away free stuff to birthday girls like me (boys too, maybe), and go paint tonight.  Everyone makes such a big deal about turning 40 that I think I expected something to happen when the clock struck midnight, like, black balloons would fall from the ceiling or something.  Nope.  Everything is just where I left it when I fell asleep right before midnight.  And I do mean EVERYTHING:

I don't feel newly "wise."

I didn't awaken to newfound financial wealth (or "oldfound" financial wealth, if there is such a thing).

My back still hurts, just like it did yesterday.

I still need to finish unpacking boxes that linger from my October move.

I still need to find work.

But wait (there's more) -

As I wandered around my apartment looking for a lesson, the day loomed large, full of possibilities.  "Just like life" I thought.

And I felt in my bones that THAT was the lesson:

That each moment of each day looms large, full of possibilities.  The only limits are those that we, ourselves, choose to allow.

Yesterday, I was thinking about the reasons that people freak out as they get older.  They (we) start thinking about all of the things they (we) had planned to accomplish that are yet undone, and how little time we have left.  Worries of inadequacy = "I am not enough."

But we are enough.  All of us.  And until we truly accept that, nothing we do will fulfill us, and after we accept that, we won't need to "do" things in order to be fulfilled.  We will just "be" and any actions that occur from a natural outgrowth of our state will be just what someone needs.  Our gifts are not for us - they are to serve others.

Aight- that's enough waxing poetic and whatnot for today.  Time to get my freebie shop on.  And tomorrow (meaning, when it's NOT my birthday), I'm going to figure out how to put my "to do" list to work for me instead of the other way around.  This current configuration ain't working, and some changes are in order.

XOXO

--Nicole