I turned 29 yesterday!
The cake my sister Sarah baked me!! It was as delicious as it looks!
I have a not-quite-regular tradition of writing thoughtful blog entries on my birthday, but yesterday I wasn’t feeling particularly pensive. Honestly, I just wanted to relax and enjoy my friends and family and food — which I did, all day long. In past years I’ve used my birthday posts to look back on the past year, to reflect on how I’ve changed, and to share photos of myself through the years. These days I think I do quite enough of that on this blog already, so there are only two insights I feel compelled to share.
First, in rereading my previous years’ birthday posts, I was struck that last year I woke up thinking of the future, whereas yesterday my thoughts were only for the day. I guess party-planning played a role in that, but could it be that I’m also moving more toward living in the moment? That’s a lovely possibility.
Second, one thing I’ve really come to appreciate in the last year is just how much of my life I owe to others. I’ve been told that I am wise and well-balanced; I don’t deny I’m proud of myself and what I’ve done with my 29 years. But I’ve only been able to become who I am because of the foundation I’ve had. I’ve been given the best: loving parents and extended family, two sisters who are among my best friends, an incredible partner, the most wonderful friends anyone could ask for (including my online friends!), material comfort, good health, skills and talents and the opportunities to develop them. From before I was born, my understanding of the world has been formed only from love, joy, and security — is it any wonder I grew up happy, well-adjusted, and loving? There are choices in my life for which I can take credit, but there’s no substitute for the way we’re raised, and I’m so blessed that in my earliest years I never experienced anything that made me question the basic goodness of living. So many people have to teach that to themselves as adults, but I was given this gift from the start, again and again, so that it’s embedded in my being. I’ve been spared so much suffering, this way, and it awes and humbles me to know that I owe this all to my parents and everything and everyone they’ve surrounded me with since I was born. I can’t ever give it back to them, so all I can do is foster more love in this world, in whatever ways I can.
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
YAY for a happy birthday! ❤ wooooooooooooooooo XOXO!
get any cool gifts? 😉 or does everyone cheat you out of gifts cuz your birthday is too close to christmas!!! (sean is a new year's day baby so he gets that a lot…)
Thank you!!! 🙂 Much love to you too!
I asked friends not to get me gifts this year, since I have so much stuff, but Sarah baked me that awesome cake, and my mom knitted me fingerless gloves so my hands can stay warm while I type and write. 😀 (She and my dad also got me a big set of Snapware glass food storage containers, which makes me really happy because I can stop using so much plastic! I am getting old for sure! ;b) Strangely, I’ve never had the Christmas-cancels-out-birthday problem; if anything, I’ve gotten some really nice combination presents over the years. 😉
ooo my parents picked up some glass food storage containers with snap-on tops from costco last year… we’ve slowly stolen more and more of them since we’ve moved out 😉 so useful!!
i hope you didn’t ask for no christmas gifts either; i want to read a delicious list of acquired goodies! that’s always so much fun 😀
I know!!! My parents got them for themselves first, and we definitely “slowly stole more and more of them” every time we went back to visit! Now I’ll have to give the stolen ones back. 😉
I did ask for no Christmas gifts, though word has it my relatives refuse and will give me red envelopes instead. 😉 I plan to mark each one with items on my art-supply wishlist and then go shopping. 😀 Then I won’t have to feel guilty spending $20 on good paper! Or $40!
Oh but I did get a couple of birthday presents I forgot to mention. My best friend gave me a cute grey chunky knitted headwrap (I’ll have to take a picture sometime), and my lovely friend Dana got me these earrings from that one post I did about Etsy shopping! (And the earrings look absolutely as gorgeous in person as they do in the photos!)
Happy belated birthday, Lisa! (The cake does look yummy!) I’ve been reading your blog for what? six months maybe? You have definitely been undgoing a change in awareness. You seem less stressed lately and your focus is more on Being rather than doing. Good work for such a young life! Nurture or nature? I would say you have a boatload of both. You have been truly blessed, and are indeed a blessing to all who know you. P.S. I love the picture of you on the last post. Beautiful!
Thank you, Sherry! I’m so glad you’ve been with me for however long you have. Your wisdom and caring encouragement have given me so much to think about, and have given me some much-needed perspective when I’ve been stressed! I’m grateful to you. 🙂
A lovely meditation on your birthday and on those surrounding you. Very hopeful and happy reading! Hope the year ahead lives up to its wonderful start on your birth day!
Thank you very much, Clare! I’m amazed it took me 29 years to appreciate my parents so deeply! 😉
Happy 2-days belated birthday to you Lisa! That cake looks delish too! = )
Thank you, Angelina! 😀 It totally was… still is, since I’ve got a big chunk of it in my fridge that I’m still working through. 😉
Wow, I actually got quite emotional reading this. Yay for abundance, loving family and friends, and living in the now. Glad to hear your birthday was absolutely fab (that cake is amazing!!). 😀
Aww, well, I was quite teary writing it as well. 🙂 Glad it touched a chord in you too!
On a sillier note, I just remembered something funny about that cake. My sister frosted it at my place, and then sat herself down in a chair about a foot away from the counter, and decorated it with those little chocolate balls by flinging them at the frosting so they’d stick. 🙂 It was a nice thick fudge frosting so they really did adhere as soon as they landed! She said she wanted to get a random scatter instead of an overly-organized appearance. That’s what happens when an engineer bakes? 😉
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