They Say It's Your Birthday

It's my birthday too!

Wow, so okay 28 years. 27 years and 46 weeks after I was diagnosed and a full 10 years longer than the projected life expectancy for CFers at that time. 17 years after I got my first horse for Christmas, 15 years after the first time someone I had a crush on kissed me (eep!), and 12 years after I first got my driver's license and started tearing up the streets of Colorado. 10 years after my senior prom and the year I left home to move across the country, and 7 years after my 21st birthday, which we won't even begin to discuss here (although I can't resist noting that it spanned two major US cities). 6 years since I graduated and left Atlanta for "The Big Apple" and 3 years since I graduated again and left law school for "The Real World." Nearly two years since I first heard the word "transplant" applied to my lungs and 1 year and 1 month since Sampson joined my family. In other words, 28 years full of crazy, chaotic, amazing, memorable, and sometimes just a little bit over-the-top experiences. And the only thing I have to say to all that is what I've already said: wow.

Birthdays are always amazing things, and while I don't mean to steal anyone else's thunder, I think they're even more special when you live with a chronic illness. It's such a cool tradition to celebrate life and the day that we came into this world, and of course this year I feel like it's even more significant somehow. The truth is, though, that it's not just the 27th of November that's worth celebrating -- all those plain old regular days that make up the rest of life are pretty damn amazing too, when you stop to think about it.

Hopefully at some point during this 28th year (most likely on one of those plain days that happens to fall in between the birthdays) I'll get a call for a kind of "rebirthday" that I know will change my life in some new and surprising and hopefully wonderful ways. I'm so grateful for the past, but I'm also really looking forward to the many things I plan to add to that list of "lifetime milestones" with my new lungs. Every day of every year, for hopefully a long time to come.

So happy birthday to my awesome body for sticking with me through all the nonsense, and happy birthday to my mind for not giving up and going wholly crazy through the madness. Most of all happy birthday to my spirit, for proving itself this year to be just about the most resilient thing since the Timex watch ("takes a licking . . . "). I can't wait to push the envelope even further and see what new ways we can come up with to get into trouble together -- and with 365 opportunities a year, I expect some pretty amazing things.

Okay so how many days is it until your birthday, and how are you going to celebrate?