As it turns out its my birthday tomorrow! I'll be 26 and still considering myself in "the mid-twenties" right?!?

If you're curious this is what I wrote last year: Happy smurf day

And the year before: 24 is the magic number

And this will be my third time blogging my birthday and I have to say this: I weigh almost exactly the same today as I did on both birthdays in the past two years. Its very true, and I drove myself crazy every year. Lost weight during summer and put it back on in the winter. The smidge of silver lining? I know how to maintain! haha well, not without driving myself crazy the whole time.

But, I don't want to write about how I'm the same weight or that its going to be different next year for 27, or how I just cannot be this weight for 30! Even though that is what I feel, I've written it in the past and those are just words. And words only bring you to your next birthday at your same weight.

Like 23, 25 has brought a lot of changes. Both ages brought a move, new opportunities and new experiences. It's really weird how much my life has changed in the space of three years. I was a college student, then I was a loan collector who ate my way up to 320lbs in Huntington WV, then I moved to nyc with josh and then I got a job at a non profit making more money then I will see in a long time, I got engaged, and then the non profit was spent away by my boss and then I started working at home and then I moved to rural VA a place where there are more cows than people.

A strange part of me feels like I am back where I started but with new perspective, back with more questions than answers. Where am I going exactly? I really thought nyc was the answer to my questions, but it was just a small chapter in discovery. I don't think rural living is the answer either and starting to feel that it isn't where you live, but what you bring to yourself and what you do with your time. Its not where you are, but who you're with and what you are doing.

That's the cool thing about life: you never know whats around the corner. And I never would have guessed any of this four years ago, I would have totally laughed. Laughed really hard. I'm excited about the next four years, who knows what I'll be writing then, or where I'll end up.

I don't have a minnie mouse cake like pictured above, but if I had candles to wish on, for 26 I would wish the following things for myself:

* To feel more comfortable with myself. In my skin, in my mind, and heal any insecurities that make me not so pleasant sometimes.

* To stop fearing success and happiness.

* To not worry so much about what everyone thinks about what I'm doing. To create art that makes me happy without worrying if it looks "real" or is "smart". To stop carrying the burdens of everyone else's opinions, insecurities or mental problems.

* To heal my body. To cherish my movements, and to really invest time and love into my body. I look at that picture above when I was four and different choices could have brought me to a body today that isn't abused by food, but that's now how it turned out. I want to reverse the abuse and move on.

* To filter through advice with a fine sieve. Everyone has there own experience.

* To surround myself with even more people who are moving forward, positive, creative and happy in their own skin. As I get older, I find how much insecurity really effects the quality of a person. False confidence need not apply.

* To spend more time outside. I have a garden planned out for the summer, and yes it could be a total disaster, but its my disaster. I hear snickers all around me regarding this garden, I have the blackest thumb ever, but how rewarding would it be to eat vegetables that I grew? Ones that weren't shipped in from foreign contries, sprayed with chemicals, and ravaged on a  molecular level in a lab. Plus the money we will save! I look forward to the solitude of this activity outside and the satisfaction of trying something I know nothing about.

* To remind myself everyday of where I want to be, where I want to go and how I will get there. I'm finding that when my goals got lost in the shuffle this past year it was because I wasn't consistently reminding myself of where I want to go. I just got caught up and forget and then remembered again and then would get caught up again.

* Spend less time whining, complaining, worrying, and analyzing assumed problems, people or circumstances. I have control of where I'm at, who I'm with and where I'm going.

* To dance and sing more.

* To create something everyday.

So there's that. I'm 26 tomorrow, horrah! And I'm glad to be alive! I'm going to be in obama-land for the weekend visiting some good friends and then returning back on Monday another year older. See you then!