There are places to go, people to see, gifts to buy, and no one has the energy for it since the skies darken so early. Our internal clocks tell us it’s time to get into our jammies even though it’s four o’clock in the afternoon.    


This is a time of reflection during which I focus on everything I didn’t accomplish during the year. I bemoan all the stills: I still don’t have my dream job. I am still struggling financially. I am still not my ideal weight. And on top of it all, I am slowly, gradually, invisibly to kind friends but quite visibly to me, aging. I recently got bangs so I am sometimes caught off guard when I pull my hair back and see the otherwise hidden horizontal line that runs across my forehead. I am noticing softness in my face; deepening lines around my eyes, even when I’m not smiling; sleep wrinkles on my chest when I wake up. I am beginning to understand the title of Nora Ephron’s book of essays on aging, I Feel Bad About My Neck. I really care about angles and lighting when being photographed. I now legitimately can’t read small print on bottles and boxes. Last year, squinting still helped. This year, it just doesn’t.

True, I can read just swell using readers of the lowest possible strength purchased from the dollar store; I can pass for, let’s say, five to eight years younger than I really am; boys still think I’m cute. I get it. I’m not saying I’m ready for the nursing home. But still, I see it coming. I’ve been seeing it coming since I was nine and experienced my first birthday funk.

My birthday is in less than a week. I’m still swimming in Thanksgiving leftovers so I decided to go for a run. Running has become meditational for me. It clears my head, helps me to solve problems—-or at least feel better about them—-and often makes me feel inspired, powerful, and most of all, grateful. I am so appreciative to be of healthy body and mind. In the spirit of this recent Thanksgiving and considering how fortunate I am in so many ways compared to so many others, how can I possibly be depressed about the privilege of getting older?

Of course, I get that logically, but the birthday depression is out of my control. Or is it? What I’m reminded of when I run is that I CAN control a lot and one thing I want to control is this: I want to turn my funk into funky. I want to change my story. Instead of focusing on the negative-—what I haven’t accomplished and the many ways I have failed—-I am going to follow the advice tattooed on my ankle and be grateful for this past year and what I have accomplished and how I have succeeded. And next year at this time, I want there to be even greater gratitude for even greater accomplishments and successes. So here we go:

1. I am grateful for family. You don’t have to have the best relationship in the world or talk to each other as much as you’d like or never disagree about things in order to love and cherish your family. My parents are alive and healthy, as are all my sisters, niece and nephews, aunts and uncles, cousins. I love them all deeply.

2. I am grateful for friends. Again, it’s okay that we don’t always see each other as much as we may like. I’m lucky to have a great circle of guys and gals, and a really special guy in particular, that I can depend on for love, support, fun, and general life enrichment.

3. I may not have my dream job or the robust financial health I’d like, but I have a job, a good one, even, that I enjoy for the most part, and I can afford a safe and pleasant place to live. I have plenty of clothes, plenty of food, electricity, a reliable car, and good credit. I am doing better than so many people in the world. This alone makes it impossible to complain.

4. I haven’t experienced any major losses lately, or in my life in general. I got divorced in 2008 and lost my job in 2012, but since then, there haven’t been any major upheavals and for that I am grateful. Even though I am job-searching right now, I am gainfully employed.

5. I am healthy. This is a luxury that I never want to take for granted. I ran a half marathon this year, for crying out loud. Two years ago, I could barely run three miles. I have all my limbs, digits, senses, and faculties. 

I’ve been considering history a lot over the past couple of weeks. The week before Thanksgiving, the beau and I went to Connecticut, Salem, and Boston. How fortunate we are to live in less troubled times 400 years after some pretty nasty stuff, and have things we take for granted easily accessible. But we are not only more fortunate than people during those times; we are more fortunate than people during these times.

As I sit here with two warm kitties in my lap and everything I could possibly need, I am blessed. In the coming year, I will strive for more: creative productivity, financial stability, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The opportunity to do so is truly the funkiest birthday gift of all.  

I've been told that a person should only wear jewelry with sentimental value. I break that rule every once in awhile when I find a cheap something or other, but for the most part I know the story behind the jewelry I wear. 

There's the blue beaded necklace that Amy gave me because it suited me so well when I tried it on, even though I originally think that she intended to keep it for herself. I have the Navajo earrings that Caitlyn brought back from Arizona, which I'm still gleefully incorporating into my wardrobe. Of course there's the textured copper crescent necklace with asymmetrical beads on the chain made by my incredibly talented jeweler friend, Draya. One of my most standout accessories is the unicorn rainbow pin that my friend Joe gave me for my birthday shortly before moving far away. I also love the orange chunky necklace my mom gave me and went to great lengths to replace when I broke it, the feather earrings I got from a street artist, the divinely smooth wooden pendant necklace that Jamie gave me for Mother's Day, the delicate silver bracelet that Jamie gave me for my birthday, basically any piece that Jamie gave me, and on and on and on. These are the staples. I put them on and take them off regularly, rely on their weight against my body, let their vibrant colors bring my face to life, build an entire wardrobe around them. 

There's one piece of jewelry, however, that I have never removed and often overlook as being an extension of my body. It's a simple, tattered ankle bracelet. While I've long outgrown my hemp choker and woven bracelet phase, I adore this stringy, knotted, beaded anklet. It's not just a piece of jewelry with a story behind it. It is the story itself, a souvenir of some great time and place. For about six summers in a row through my adolescence I traveled with friends and groups and sometimes strangers to Nicaragua with a non-profit called Bridges to Community. The organization was in its infancy on my first trip at the age of 15. I ventured south of the border, my first international trip without one of my parents, alongside my childhood best friend Leanne and her father Dave to build houses with families left homeless after various hurricanes and revolutions. Two week stints were spent polishing my Spanish, dancing, mixing cement, laughing, bartering, carrying bags of sand, playing futbol, building rebar and laying blocks, swimming in shark infested fresh water lake Nicaragua, hiking volcanoes, eating rice and beans, and generally expanding my love of the world and its rich, diverse cultures. 

It was on this first trip that we were introduced to a group of orphans who lived like the lost boys in what I remember to be tree houses by the lake. They ranged in age and learned early on to take care of themselves. One of the ways they did this was by making and selling bracelets. I'm sure it cost me about two dollars to buy the bracelet that I tied around my ankle, and I remember choosing the one that was the most beautiful, and the boys agreeing that it was perfect for me. I didn't have a plan for my ownership of the jewelry but it turned out that I never, ever wanted to remove it. It feels just right on my ankle, falling across the top of my foot, always reminding me of my years of service in Central America. No matter how annoying it is to have to remove my right sock carefully enough to avoid ripping the anklet, no matter how many weird puddles it leaves on sheets after I shower, no matter how old or ratty or out of fashion it might become, it is a symbol of my travels and friends, of my fortune having two living parents, and of the presence in my mind of people not being served by their government or peers or universe or whoever is supposed to make sure that kids don't get malaria and moms don't get asthma cooking tortillas all day. 

You can imagine my surprise when I discovered last week it was missing.

For 15 years I feared what would happen if I ever lost my ankle bracelet. I assumed it would be due to nothing less tragic than severing my foot from my leg or being victimized by grabby trolls while crossing a bridge. I stood in my closet, eyes wide open, staring at my naked ankle. Friends were waiting downstairs so I didn't want to take the time to search my house obsessively. Being winter, I hoped that it couldn't be much farther than tangled an inside-out sock or tight pair of pants, but I didn't know what to do and realized that it could actually be anywhere. I picked up my drink and remained calm, completely shocked at my lack of hysterical bawling. My favorite piece of jewelry, my bastion of worldly adventure was gone. What would I do?

Like any good disaster sister, I ate and drank enough to be distracted and explained the situation in passing as if it didn't bother me. I was almost bothered by how much it didn't bother me. Having recently experienced some serious bouts of missing a few faraway friends, I only assumed that I was being taught to let go. Maybe the anklet was never mine in the first place. Maybe I shouldn't be so attached to personal belongings. Maybe we had a good run and it's simply time to move on. Crappy, but sensible. I began the process of letting go.

What happened next in the saga sparks everything within me that makes me want to watch romantic comedies and listen to pop music and roll around in grassy fields with chubby bunnies and berries. I found it! I took a heaping pile of clothing into the laundry room and rather mindlessly shoved handfuls of articles into the washer until I uncovered a very familiar trinket. Still tied in what is proved to be the world's greatest knot, my anklet lay in waiting on top of my dirty jeans. It was never lost, and it slipped right back onto my foot like it had never been anywhere else.

As someone who very intently searches for lost objects and almost always succeeds in finding them, I find it interesting that I didn't drop everything to search frantically for what went missing. Maybe deep down I knew that I would find it. Or maybe I actually loved the ankle bracelet enough to let it go, fortified by our many years together to continue on with my life. Maybe I was feeling centered enough to shift my expectations from "this is how my life is and will be" to "now this is how my life will be, and it's different than I thought." I don't always love change. I'm open to the stuff I can manifest, but, c'mon, please don't go rearranging my shelves without asking me first! I think I learned that even though it can be sad to lose something, it's not productive to add the fear of being without something on top of the devastation of losing it. 

Most importantly, though, I understand all of those "if you love something, set it free" cliches more than ever. So if your bracelet or your dog or your car or your lover isn't where you thought it might be, find gratitude for the moments when you could anticipate its whereabouts, and if you ever find yourself wearing it again, never take for granted the way it feels on your skin.