Happy 27th to me!

Today is my birthday.

I hit twenty-seven.

And it feels GOOOOOOD.

I have kept thinking of ways to start this post or angles to make it more amusing and somehow explain why each birthday of mine is a milestone, even the seemingly insignificant ones, like 27.

It is certainly not the same feeling as turning thirteen when I was giddy and getting dressed up for cake and presents from my friends. 

The birthday excitement doesn't ring so much to that tune anymore, but there is definitely excitement.

I guess I would call the feeling accomplishment.

When I hit my 25TH birthday after a transplant that nearly took my life, I was celebrating like a rockstar.   

Okay, well, that's exaggerating, a rock star post cancer treatment.

When my doctor called that day I quickly joked that he was calling to wish me a happy birthday. 

He did, of course, help me reach a birthday I may not have. I have celebrated my birthday with my childhood primary care physician all my life because with out him, I wouldn't have had any at all. 

I get an urge with Dr. G and Anna to call them up screaming and celebrating everytime I hit a milestone.

 I don't know if other patients do this, but I am beginning to think I am a little out of the ordinary.

I want them to enjoy my successes as much as my setbacks. 

Dr. G didn't joke back that 25th birthday. The call was not to tell me go party and have a good time enjoy your refreshed cancer free life.

It was to tell me I had relapsed. My cancer returned. That was two years ago today. Every birthday since 24 I have reveled in just having it.

It is different celebrating when you truly believed at some point during the year that you may not age.  

I never moan because I am getting a year older. 

I have yet to freak out because I have met an age but not the goals I dreamed would come along with it.

  I hope I get to an age where I lie and say I am 29, because I have gone too far beyond thirty and would like to go back. 

As it is, I have been hanging on tooth and nail to get to each birthday since twenty-three.     

How do you live up to a celebration of that? How do you celebrate each birthday like it's an accomplishment of surviving. Or how do you celebrate each birthday wondering if its your last?

Who knows what a year can bring?

How about celebrating most days like their your last and not waiting.

I have just made life my one big celebration.

Yes, the best present I have been given through the years is time and the understanding to appreciate its value.

I try never to waste it. 

I give it to those I love and care about.

 I give my time to causes I love in hopes to leave this world better or make illness easier. 

Time is the greatest gift I have been given. 

I don't even need a birthday to celebrate it. 

But today j, x and I still are. We at breakfast by the beach and then played a family air hockey tournament. Ironically we're playing an air hockey game called "hot flash." 

I guess the whole world knows about my hotness problem and has decided to poke fun. Since I woke up this morning, I have just been one big flash.

It must be the "old age."

After this we went to one great condo for our swim gear and an afternoon of bodyboarding. 

I dare say, I couldn't imagine a beter way to spend my day (scratch that. I miss Heather and family, my twin sister, who would have been celebrating our birthday too had she not been in bed trying to prevent preston's birthday from coming).

I think a lot of us are finding enjoyment within the simple things life brings since the recession has taken away our ability to be distracted with wanton consumerism, but I am happy with time.

It's the best gift I have been given. It's free and it's from the heart.

I'll take it.