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Portrait of Khadi by Matt Cauley

Return of the Bern. (via hear7breaker)

birthdays are happy and complicated.

So it's been a while since I last wrote, and I figure the eve of my birthday is a good time as any to pick up writing again. So excuse the long rambling post... There's just a lot to reflect on.

I always get a little sad and antsy around my birthday and I could never figure out why. But I think it has to do with never feeling like I deserve a birthday. Which is contradictory to how I want to feel about birthdays. I mean, I love everyone else's birthdays because I think birthdays are a time to celebrate who they are and what brought them here.

But when I think about what brought be here, I sometimes feel like a crazy person because it feels like I'm moving along at warp speed. But then again, I guess I haven’t really taken the time to think about what I’ve been doing-- because I’ve been too busy doing it!

In the last three months: I finished grad school, moved back to Minnesota and got married, moved in with my husband and started my first job. There was also a bunch of things that happened in between. For one, I started therapy at the beginning of this year. I was at a point where my negative self-talk, stress and perfectionism were starting to ruin my relationship(s).

I’m not going to therapy any more because of all the changes in my life, but I think it has helped me be kinder to myself and have better relationships with my parents. I do hope to pick it up again soon.

The last three years have also been about learning more about social justice work and what it means to do work that is eternal and not just for aesthetics. A good social justice analysis is not greater than experience. Nothing. Beats. Experience. That was important for me to learn in order to move from being a professional college student and think about how to turn the stuff I was passionate about into a job I loved.

There’s been a lot of learning and growth in the last couple of years. And now I recognize that there’s even more to learn about. That stuff excites me and it motivates me to keep on going. I am blessed to have a supportive partner, loving family, grandma and culture to root me, and a job that inspires me.

And right now, I need to slow down and enjoy all of it .

#personal