My little girl turns two this week, and 10 days after that I turn 37. I’m not sure why 37 is hurting my feelings, but it is. More than I remember any other age hurting. It’s not a milestone year. It’s one of those in-between, no-big-deal birthdays. Not sure why it’s rattling me so.

Of course, when I was in my early twenties, I dated a man who was 37. I keenly remember his age, because no one in my life thought that it was a good idea for me to be dating someone nearly two decades older. There was a lot of heartache during that time of my life, and I like to keep the memory of that relationship and its messy dealings with the other relationships in my life crammed into a storage box and covered with a bunch of other crap in the recesses of my brain. Alas, the thought of turning 37 is entangled in the web of that dusty storage box. Like tugging on what you thought was just a single strand of loose yarn only to discover that you have surfaced a knotted up mess.

It didn’t help that one of my uncles asked me my age at Christmas and then had to sit with the information quietly for a minute. I think it rattled him too. I’m sure I’ll have to take a long pause when my brother’s daughter tells me she’s pushing forty.

And then there is the incongruence of expectations and reality to consider. My life, my finances, and the body my spirit inhabits do not look like what I thought they’d look like. A lot of things don’t look the way they’re supposed to look according to the expectations set before me as an elder millennial.

Maybe this is the season of letting go of expectations.

One day while desperately seeking YouTube for a strategy to simplify laundry, I stumbled upon “The Minimal Mom”. Subscribing to this idea of minimalism as a way to prioritize the most important things, decluttering has become a part of my self care. Important note: decluttering of physical items isn’t the only kind of decluttering. Maybe this writing is what I needed in my mental decluttering process. Get all the junk pulled out, throw the obvious garbage away, donate the possibly useful information, and leave a clean space for what matters most.

Now, let me clean and decorate the space with gratitude. Renew a right spirit within me, Lord.

Thank You for this big, beautiful, squishy body that has grown two human beings and nourished the littlest one for two years. This body was slashed open and gutted twice to deliver the new life within it, and so it is fearful and wonderful and should be regarded as such. You have given me fervor for fighting against the marginalization of women, and so I will fight.

I will not consider selfish the desires to care for myself, because I know the result of caring for myself is a person with the capacity to be and give more to others. I will continue to seek help from community, and where community is not there, I will build it.

Maybe this is not the season for a lot of the stuff that I want to do… like writing. It’s taken me 8 days, full of interruptions, just to pen this short and incoherent post.

Maybe it’s the season for embracing imperfection and doing the damn thing anyway.

If you read this far through the rambling, you must take an interest in me and my thoughts, and for that, I’m so grateful. I love you and thank you for loving me.