41

I have a short and semi-random blog post for you guys this morning, but it’s something that keeps tumbling around in my brain. Today is my birthday and birthdays have a way of making me feel reflective.

I was talking to Ryan earlier about some of my best memories from last year. Our family vacation to Alaska came to mind. So did camping, our Disney cruise, visiting family in Florida, lake days, long walks with my dogs, a whirlwind trip to Vegas with Ryan, girls’ weekends, zip-lining in Asheville with the boys… it was all so good.

But one memory really caught me off guard. It was one of those “grief and joy can coexist” memories that continue to remind me just how wild of a ride life is that some of our hardest moments can spit out some of our most tender memories.

After Pepper died very suddenly, we did almost 2 weeks of family sleepovers with the boys. They slept on our camping mats in our bedroom and we just got through it together. These sleepovers ended up being etched into my heart forever because they led to so many sweet, silly and tender moments. So we did one again last night and we’ll do it again tonight to sandwich my 41st birthday in sleepovers. 

Life isn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but family sleepovers make it pretty darn close. I know deep in my bones having back-to-back family sleepovers with my kids all in one room will be something I will deeply long to re-live in the future. I’m holding onto it very tightly right now and feeling like a very lucky 41-year-old today.