12.22.24 // 34th Birthday

34.
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Today is my 34th birthday.
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I HATED having my birthday on December 22nd for much of my life.
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I wrote about this last year and how my perspective has shifted as I've gotten older. I talked specifically about how much I have learned to love my birthday because it's the first day we move towards brighter days. How it is the first light in the darkness; it is the turn towards ever-increasing hope.
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This year, I'm reminded why I love my birthday; it aligns so closely with the end of a year and the start of a new one.
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I love that, along with the rest of the world, I can close out a year of my life almost perfectly aligned with a calendar year. While the world is reflecting, planning, resting, dreaming, creating goals, and building intentions, I get to do the same - not just based on the calendar but also on my age.
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There’s something beautiful about sharing this season of pause and reflection with everyone else. My birthday feels less like an isolated celebration and more like a communal season, a series of weeks where the world joins me in resting, resetting, and quietly preparing for what’s to come.
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I’m not alone in this stillness- I’m surrounded by a collective breath, a shared turning of the page. It feels like a universal pause. A quiet agreement that we’re all allowed to step back for a moment, to look at where we’ve been and imagine where we might go next. And in this shared stillness, I find comfort - that while we each carry our own stories and reflections, something unspoken connects us at this time of year.
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At 34, I take that pause as an invitation- to breathe, to rest, to gather myself fully before stepping forward into what’s next. Not hurriedly but with intention. With care. With gratitude for everything this year has given me and everything I’m still becoming.
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So here’s to 34. To the beauty of reflection, the quiet of winter, and the shared pause that allows us all to simply be for a moment longer.