My birthday is tomorrow and I am preparing to celebrate it with my family. This birthday, like the last few, means a lot to me because several years ago my life was almost cut short by breast cancer. I don’t say that for dramatic effect it is simply a fact of my past. I don’t take my life for granted, nor do I live in constant fear that it will end but this year I am even more contemplative because during the past few weeks a number of major events have occurred that affected the way that I look at my life even though the events are not about me.

In the U.S. we just came through an election that simply made people crazed. There was a lot of public anger and such unhappiness that no matter what side you were on it was unpleasant. I believe I heard a collective sigh of relief when it was over just so we wouldn’t have to hear the negativity in ads anymore! More recently there have been terrible crimes committed including a massive one impacting many very young children and their families and friends. All of this and Christmas is just a few days away.

I recently saw the movie about President Abraham Lincoln and surprised myself by being anxious about how it would end, despite knowing how it would end.  I learned a lot from the movie and realize that the world continues to turn, seasons change, ideas change, people change. How I feel about those things matters only to me and those in my orbit. Maybe you. So, I am taking the events of the world in- knowing that I may have no control over them, processing them, feeling the sorrow when appropriate, and being grateful that I was born.

Kim