The last day in my 30s

711 / 731 : Since I celebrate my birthday from December 12th to 15th....today is an extra special day. It is the last day I spend in my 30's. So to mark this day I went looking for my favorite memory from the last decade...one that includes a picture of JUST me. And guess what...I had pictures with my loved ones...pictures of other people...pictures of memorable moments....but rarely an image of just me....happy and content where I was. If I knew now what I knew back then I would have made sure I embraced each moment, included more of myself when I was documenting the world around me. After all....I am a very big part of my own story.

Life stories changes and chapters come to a conclusion... and new chapters begin. My thirties have been marked by multiple painful story changing endings (death of my father, death of my Kootney, end of an 8 year relationship, end of my veterinary medicine career, end of long term friendships and family relationships, the arrival of that hag Bertha).

But it has also brought to me wonderful new beginnings ; meeting and marrying my other half, the love of my life Gordon;being blessed with our loving Freddy and Carmela; having the universe grant my prayers to please keep Julia in my life; being blessed over and over with wonderful family and friends who love and cherish me...learning to say I love you people that I love so much I can't imagine.

Here is hoping that I appreciate the lessons of this past decade in the one to come. And here is to having pride in myself...ESPECIALLY because I am unique and perfect in my own strange way. . This was from 3 years ago in Cambodia....I had just hiked up this mountain....laughed and cussed the whole way....I remember being so proud of my achievement that I couldn't be present in the moments that followed the climb....not one image I took atop the mountain was worth the pixels I wasted on it....because who really cares if I have perfect portraits of monks perched atop a mountain....dude...all my juicy fluffiness made it up and down a mountain that day....with like 30 lbs of unnecessary camera gear strapped to me....in flip flops....coz that is how Marts Musa-Birchmore does Marts Musa-Birchmore.....no one does it better than me.