2 more to 40 a bit about your Evanston Photographer

I’m not afraid of getting older. I am one less day from dying young.
I am excited for my 40^th birthday. No I am not there yet. Yes, that means I am older. It also means my children will be older, more independent. I have been planning my 40^th birthday party since I was 31. I probably need to make some changes to it, because at the time I lived in California and my party was going to center around traveling back to Madison to re-live my college days with college friends. My birthday is also in February… so there is that weather thing. I have two more years to plan it, so I am not worried about all the details yet. But, I am always happy to hear suggestions.

There is something about getting older that feels so freeing.

I care less about looking unflattering in photos because this is what I look like. I love my photos with my kids, even the ones from bad angles.

The older I get, the less things feel like making one decision is going to determine the rest of my life. At this point I have come to realize no singular decision is going to create a single path. I do not think I believe in destiny, but things have worked out pretty well overall thus far.

I wrote this blog a month ago, and I am re reading it to add photos today. I recently had a big change happen in my life that sent me into full on panic attacks earlier. Instead of wanting to delete the whole paragraph (heck the whole blog), reading this over helped center me, helped remind me that I really do believe this. And now, the bigger question to me is what do I want to do next?

Another blogger recently asked on Instagram stories “if you could go back in time when would you go to”.  There is no point in my life I would want to have a do-over with, what if it changed something. Even knowing what I know now about the last week, I am glad I went through what I did. Also – there is definitely no point in my life I would want to re-live. I am tired as it is, I don’t want to do any of this all over again.

I am excited about getting older, moving forward, moving on. My grandma used to tell me that it was better to get old than to be dead and in the ground. I actually wrote a poem based around it in Jr. High. I won an award for it, but was asked to change the last sentence to something less depressing. That request still sticks with me as ridiculous. Reality is not all roses. If you are not getting older, you are dying young. So I will celebrate every year I get. Of course, I don’t want to live forever, but I am pretty happy living right now.

I also just love birthdays because they are a great reason to make friends make room in their busy lives for you :D. I am not all about being the center of attention, when I invite friends out around my birthday I play it off as a get together. But, if it makes my usually busy friends drop what they are doing to hang for a night, I am willing to make an exception and let them in on the secret that it is my birthday.