You Say It's Your Birthday....

So this weekend I started reading Palace Walk and though I'm only a hundred pages in, I'm loving it.  It's a book that makes me reflect on my own life and how grateful I am for things that so many people take for granted.  For starters, I'm grateful that I'm not the wife of a tyrannical dictator like the lead character in Palace Walk.  I'm grateful that I don't need permission to leave my home and that I can do so unattended.  I'm grateful that I've been allowed to have a proper education and can continue it for as long as I choose.  I'm grateful that I'm entitled to an education, and a career, and the choice to marry whomever I choose.  I'm grateful that I don't have to be a prisoner in my own home, as the wife and daughters of the cruel patriarch of this novel are.  I'm grateful for my right to vote, speak freely and to express myself as I see fit.

There's more:  today is my 37th birthday and I'm so grateful to be here.  I'm grateful for my family.  I'm grateful for my dog, Walter.  He was a gift for my 30th birthday.  Best gift ever.  I'm grateful for my health, grateful for my community, grateful for my friends and grateful for the joys of living in this amazing city.  

I walked the Brooklyn Bridge this morning as a treat to myself and listened to my favorite music and just felt so incredibly fortunate.  All of the tourists were snapping pictures of one another to take their memories of New York home to wherever home is for them, but I get to live here, all year round.  It's such a pleasure.  

Most of all, I'm grateful for my daughter.  She's the best thing that's ever happened to me.  I'm grateful to live in a country where she'll have the opportunity to choose whatever lifestyle she wants, and no one will have the power to thwart her dreams.  I hope to teach her to never take any of this for granted.  I'll try to teach myself the same thing.  A very happy birthday to me.