Wow. I don’t feel 43. To be honest, I don’t even feel 33. It seems as if it were only yesterday that I was sitting on my mom’s lap, blowing out fewer than ten candles, wearing a white dress with pink flowers. That I was shopping with my dad for the perfect Barbie birthday present. That I was curled up with my sister in our pink room, watching Disney movies. That my grandmother was taking me to the neighbor’s farm in Brazil to drink fresh, warm milk straight from the cow.
It feels like yesterday that I got my driver’s license at sixteen in Westchester. went to my first dance in New York, and graduated high school in Frankfurt. That I moved into my dorm in Lausanne, partied all night with my friends just to show up to class on a Friday morning still hungover; started my first real job in Dubai; went skinny dipping in the ocean; decided to spend the rest of my life with the love of my life and then realised that unconditional love & inexplicable worry slaps you in the face when you become a parent yourself.
Today I woke up feeling blessed. Kissed by the man I love—the father of my children—then realizing that two little bundles of joy were sleeping and softly snoring beside me. A smile stretched across my face as a wave of gratitude washed over me, powerful and unstoppable, carrying me gently to shore.
As if that weren’t enough, I walked downstairs to find a beautifully set birthday table, my parents preparing breakfast. My mother—unchanged in forty years—still as beautiful, stylish, energetic, and full of love as ever. My father—the calmest, most generous soul I know—never complaining, always creating. Both waiting with open arms to wish me a happy birthday.
And there it was again—that overwhelming wave of gratitude.
So who cares how old I am? If this is what 43 feels like, bring it on. Who knows what the rest of the day will bring, the rest of the year, the rest of my life. All I know is that I am happy now. That I live now. That the people sharing this moment with me are here now.
This, to me, is happiness: enjoyig the present. Not mourning yesterday, not fearing tomorrow, but embracing today. Because for all we know, today is all we truly have. So let’s make it the best today yet.
Thank you for being here.
Choose kindness. Create joy.